Stargate Ragnarok: Recall
by Sealurk
Summary: Ep 6: Even though the Fenrir have been quiet, the Garrison has another crisis on its hands, one that will have a profoundly personal impact... on everybody.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

_May 2010_

With the exception of the desks, chairs and filing cabinets, the portacabin was emptier than it had been for several weeks. Typically the office was filled with people, paperwork and the low roar of several laptops and conversations at any one time. Now there was only one occupant, working quietly by the cold illumination of the single active strip light. Patiently, McAlmont adjusted his spectacles while he waited for each of the four remaining laptop displays to go dark before he closed the lids, pulled the power cords and began inserting the computers and their peripherals into the bags. There were several laptops already packed away and waiting by the door, sitting on top of a number of black kit bags.

The door to the portable building slammed open, accompanied by a blast of cold air that would have swept any remaining paperwork off the desks had it not been meticulously packed away and sent back with the previous group. McAlmont was immediately grateful that somebody had thought to stack the bags on the side of the wall where the door couldn't bang into them, and even more grateful that he'd had the foresight to wear most of his thermal gear today, wool cap included. He had learned the hard way that wintry gusts and a receding hairline did not mix well.

The rising wind howled as a shorter than average figure, bulked out by insulated clothing, a parka and thick gloves, staggered into the building despite fierce opposition from the weather and struggled for a few seconds to close the door, signalling triumph with a weak "Whew".

"What's it like out there?" McAlmont asked in his quiet, calm, Canadian accented voice as he zipped the last bag up and checked the desks to make sure he hadn't missed some vital cable.

"Well, the last report we got was spot on – the weather's definitely started picking up. We have one, maybe two hours of daylight left – hard to tell with this cloud cover. The temperature's most certainly dropped in the last few minutes, but we have enough time before the storm is in full swing," the visitor said breathlessly in an English accent, dropping her fur-lined hood and brushing dark hair out of her face as she moved towards the glowing electric heater. "I don't suppose the coffee has been left out?"

"Looking forward to going back to your old job?" McAlmont said with a sly grin, moving the final four computers to the large stack of luggage.

"Ha, no – I won't miss this weather one bit but I'm still not overly keen on leaving given what we've been doing and finding here and what they'll have me doing there, but I'll tell you now, I got caught in one of these storms before, and it's not fun," she said as she moved to the kettle and mugs that had not yet been packed away.

"Well, it looks like you were definitely right to get us closing down early. When's our transport due?" McAlmont asked.

"Technically? In about twenty minutes, so I'm expecting it round about… now, really. Anyway, I think we're almost finished here for the time being. As far as I can see, not much more needs shutting down, putting away or closing up. Pretty much everything we can't take with us is stored away. Lamont is hauling some of the more delicate equipment into shelter and covering it, while Enright and Bhaskar are checking and locking the sheds. If you've got this sorted, we're about done. I want one more look at the site to make sure we're ready to go and then we're just waiting for pick-up. No – wait. What am I forgetting?" she asked, wearing a perplexed expression as she ran through a mental checklist and ticked things off on her insulated fingers.

"Oh I don't know, Elise. Perhaps the generator?" McAlmont said helpfully, smiling as he piled the last of the laptops with the rest of the baggage.

"Oh yeah. I knew that, of course," Halverson said with an embarrassed grin. "Well, we'll leave it on for now, but make sure it's the very last thing we do before we leave – if the weather goes the way I think it's going to go, or if transport is delayed for any reason, we'll need all the heat and electricity we can get."

Halverson turned back towards the door. McAlmont shrugged on his parka and followed.

Pushing the door open against the rising wind, the two figures left the relative comfort of the portable building and stepped onto the cracked black rock of the ground. The sky was beginning to turn a similarly dark and threatening shade.

"Any sign?" she asked, scanning their surroundings.

"You're asking the guy with glasses?" McAlmont laughed.

"I'll take that as a no then shall I?"

They waited for a while, occasionally checking to see how the others were doing and pondering whether the clouds were getting thicker and blacker or the daylight was getting dimmer until Halverson decided it was most likely both.

"I'm starting to think we could have waited in the cabin. You sure transport's on its way?" the geologist asked, eyeing the increasingly unfriendly looking sky. Halverson pulled her sleeve back to check her watch, feeling the cold bite into her skin.

"Positive. Wait – there, just coming over that hill," she said triumphantly, pointing to a small rise beyond the entrance to the shallow, wide valley where there camp was. McAlmont followed her finger and squinted until he saw what Halverson saw – almost three hundred metres away, a powerful pair of headlights moved jerkily but with good speed towards them. Seconds later it became clear there was a second pair following perhaps twenty metres behind the first, and that both belonged to Land Rovers. The off-road vehicles were making their way remarkably quickly across the terrain.

"There's our ride home, and just in time looking at that sky," McAlmont said.

"If there is one certainty of life on Lyngvi, it's that storm clouds are never far away," Halverson said sagely as she surveyed the landscape of dark volcanic rock and alien heather. Feeling the chill sting of wind on her face, Halverson quickly pulled the hood of her parka further down in defence against the increasingly inclement weather.

"That, and if the rainfall gets any worse they'll be handing this project over to the Royal Navy," her bespectacled companion said as he held his gloved hand out experimentally – sure enough, the first drops of freezing cold water were already falling out of the rumbling sky.

Searching the increasingly dim and rain filled horizon for their target, Halverson nodded, and staggered slightly as the wind howled and began to increase in force. As the wind speed continued to climb, the temperature continued to drop. She knew what was coming, and even with forewarning and proper gear, she was eager not to repeat the end of her first visit to this world. Doctor McAlmont hadn't been on P7T-434 long, but he caught on quickly.

The first of the olive drab Land Rovers was close enough now that they could just about hear the thrum of the vehicle's diesel engine over the wind as it headed towards them and stopped. The engine idled as the driver's side door opened. Halverson smiled and waved at the driver.

"How the hell did you know I was coming?" Taylor said, surprised, as he climbed out of the vehicle and walked towards the waiting pair.

"Now that would be telling," Halverson said with a grin. "Hello Dave – welcome back to Site 02."

"Thanks. Yeah, I must say I like what you've done with the place," he said dryly, gazing at the collection of portable and modular buildings sat on the apron of jet black rock. "Last time I was here it was all Hesco bastions, weapon emplacements and soldiers. Now it just looks so much more…"

"Civilian?" Halverson prompted.

"Peaceful."

"Well, that's probably a fair assessment. Anyway, Dave – I'd like you to meet Doctor Peter McAlmont, our geologist. Pete, this is Major David Taylor," Halverson said as the second Land Rover pulled up neatly alongside Taylor's vehicle. Taylor gestured to the driver, who exited and approached, leaving the light truck parked but running.

"Oh hey, Major Taylor. I've heard quite a lot about you," McAlmont said as he extended his gloved hand. Smiling politely but in bemusement, Taylor shook it vigorously.

"Not all bad, I hope?" Taylor grinned. McAlmont blinked and paused, his mouth gaping as he sought for the most appropriate words.

"Let's, uh, get the Land Rover packed, yeah?" Halverson said quickly, walking between the two of them. She waved to Bhaskar, Lamont and Enright, now happily ensconced inside the warm, dry site office and nursing hot drinks. They waved back and got up to start hauling the bags. As she walked away, followed by Taylor, McAlmont grabbed the Major's arm.

"Oh, Major? You've left your engine running," he said helpfully, indicating the idling Land Rover.

"Trust me Doctor, with the weather we've got coming in I don't even want to risk not being able to start her up again," Taylor said ominously before smiling lightly. "Anyway, you guys can spare Halverson for a few minutes, right? Private Langer, help them out would you?"

"Yes sir. Hello Doctor Halverson," Langer said, nodding acknowledgement to one and greeting to another.

Halverson smiled and waved to the soldier as he jogged up to the cabin to assist with the bags. Langer waved back as Halverson headed deeper into the camp. Taylor moved after her.

"You know Langer?" Taylor asked with a hint of mischief in his voice.

"He's the primary driver for our supply and personnel run, so yes. Also, he's been giving me driving lessons," Halverson said.

"But you already drive…" Taylor said, confused.

"Yes, but not off road at breakneck speed and using every advanced driving trick in the book. So why are you here early anyway?" Halverson asked as she waited for Taylor to catch up with her.

"Webber wants everybody back inside well before the storm hits. You and I both know that's a damn good idea. Also," Taylor said, shuddering less from the cold and more from the memory of how their very first mission to Lyngvi had ended, and nearly ended them in the process, "he wants all senior staff and department heads present and correct for nineteen hundred hours… we're expecting a new arrival. So, come on then. While they're packing the Landies you can show me what you've been doing for the past six months."

* * *

Taylor was surprised that he couldn't quite get over how drastically different Site 02 looked. All of the British and American defences he remembered had long since been removed and returned to Earth, and the dirt-filled temporary structures that weren't worth transporting had been broken down and dispersed over the surrounding terrain. All that had happened not long after the Stargate had been installed in the Garrison, paving the way for the area to be completely redeveloped by its new tenants.

"How the hell did you get all this done so quickly? And on our budget?" he asked, gazing incredulously at the new structures that sat on the expanse of levelled black rock covering several acres. There were half a dozen portacabins sat around the edges of the cleared expanse while the decidedly less residential looking structures occupied much of the centre.

"Well, we learned quickly we needed some pretty decent protection from the elements while we were working, and tents just wouldn't cut it when we knew we were going to be here for more than a few days. Since this is expected to be a very important long term project, the Brigadier got this built for us," Halverson said as she led Taylor to the centre of the camp. Dominating it was the largest and probably most permanent looking building present, a structure the size of a tennis court that looked like a prefabricated warehouse, made entirely out of corrugated metal painted a very utilitarian shade of grey. In the centre of the end facing them there was a large metal roller door. "We had planned to excavate the entire thing once it was under cover, but the rock proved just a bit too hard for that, sadly."

"I thought you'd have a lot more personnel on a project this size," Taylor commented.

"Normally there are around twenty of us. Funnily enough, given the problems with the rock there are more excavation experts than archaeologists. Dynamite Boy even came out early on to help us for a day or so – I've been on archaeological digs where we've used pneumatic drills, mini-diggers, even full blown JCBs, but I'm pretty sure this is the first one I've been on where we needed high explosives. Gareth seemed a little distracted though, if I'm honest," Halverson answered as she walked up to the control box next to the door and held down a large green button. Slowly, the door's electric motor shuddered to life and began to lift. "We sent most of the staff back this morning once we got word of what the weather was doing, with just the five of us staying behind to make sure everything was properly locked up and closed down, since we really don't want to come back and find our work buried under snow or destroyed by high winds. I'm surprised nobody told you, and actually – how come you're here if you don't know?"

Though Halverson couldn't see it as she walked in front once the door was high enough, Taylor shrugged.

"The occasional email wasn't enough. I wanted to see what you were up to, so I just took over from the other assigned driver."

"You mean you pulled rank!" Halverson laughed.

"Well… yes, but I did it very politely."

"Still doesn't explain how come you don't know what's been happening, Dave."

"I've just been a bit busy," he said cryptically as he followed her inside. "Okay – this is not what I was expecting."

Taylor was surprised – although well lit by both natural and artificial light, the building appeared to be empty and lacking any kind of level man-made floor. While the four walls were fixed with concrete, the floor was simply more exposed black rock, with only two important differences – there was a large, natural looking fissure running almost the length of the building, and a set of metal steps close to them that led down into it.

* * *

As she opened the double doors the overwhelming scent of disinfectant and other hints regarding a professional obsession with cleanliness bombarded her. It was still a familiar and, despite the events of the last few months, oddly comforting aroma that served to lighten her slightly nervous mood as she took in the drastically altered surroundings.

"Well, this is definitely an improvement…" she murmured as she glanced around, drinking in the changes.

To Moffatt's pleasant surprise the infirmary looked very different to how she remembered it – the previously bare concrete walls were now properly sealed and painted and abundant strip lights hanging from the ceiling illuminated the formerly dim, utilitarian area. There were now dozens of beds, monitors, lockers and crash trolleys visible in several locations… the entire section had been transformed into a significantly more functional space, one that actually felt like a dedicated cutting edge medical facility instead of the warehouse hastily converted into a field hospital. She remembered the old incarnation of the infirmary well, having become all too familiar with it and its many failings and idiosyncrasies during her mercifully brief role as the then-severely understaffed Garrison's acting chief medical officer.

Instead of a single main space and a handful of poorly equipped offices and supply lockers, it was clear that the side rooms had been expanded, finished and fitted, finally giving the Garrison a medical facility truly capable of dealing with nearly anything – mass trauma, complex surgeries, alien contagions and in-depth biological research. Most importantly and hearteningly of all for Moffatt though, the section was fully staffed. There were now well over a dozen people in sight already – she recognised most as being medical officers and technicians from the military and others as civilian doctors and nurses, but regardless of their background she suspected more worked in the rooms leading off the main area. A quick glance at the staff roster on the new whiteboard confirmed this suspicion.

Thankfully very few of the beds were occupied, and none of those that were seemed to hold any particularly serious cases. She reflected that in a more conventional base's medical facility, there probably wouldn't even be this many people being treated – given that a small nick on the back of the neck or throat could mean infestation by an intelligent, sapient neural parasite and the slightest cough could either simply be a cold or the first symptom of the Ori plague, medical professionals working in the Stargate Program had long tried to cultivate a healthy degree of paranoia and even hypochondria in their patients.

"Corporal Moffatt?"

She looked up to see Major Nelson waving her over from the other side of the room and into his office. She followed and he closed the door, gesturing for her to sit in the chair in front of his desk as he moved to the one behind it.

"Thank you for seeing me sir," Moffatt said as she tried to get comfortable in the chair. Her eyes moved across the three framed photographs on the wall – among them a photograph of a young, smiling Jerome Nelson on campus at the University of West Indies, a more focused and sombre picture of him at his passing out parade at Sandhurst and a candid shot of a much older and busier Nelson working on a wounded soldier in a tent in Afghanistan that she suspected had been taken shortly before he had been headhunted by the SWRS to serve as the Garrison's Chief Medical Officer.

"It's no trouble, and it's good to see you corporal – though I'm a little surprised you're here if I'm honest," Nelson said, his Jamaican accent diluted by twenty years of living in England and amongst Britons, but still present and recognisable. "This is the first time you've seen it, isn't it? How do you like our improved infirmary?"

"All this is because of the fallout from the Fido incident?" Moffatt asked in surprise.

"Well indirectly, yes. When the powers that be realised just what we were up against, we suddenly got a hefty funding boost that allowed us to get all of this built among other things, but I feel it came at a very high cost. Courtesy of our Fenrir prisoner we suffered several fatalities and a lot of other casualties, yours included, but ultimately I hope those losses will not be entirely in vain. Because of Fido proving how dangerous the Fenrir are directly to the people with the money and power, we now have a surgical suites, isolation rooms, a proper main ward, multipurpose rooms and exceptional research facilities… nearly everything I could have asked for short of an MRI suite, and all of it staffed by just about the most experienced, combat-proven and emergency-hardened medical staff the British armed forces has to offer. Now, what can I do for you?"

"I was hoping you'd reconsidered your decision sir," Moffatt said, knowing that while Major Nelson was a very pleasant human being, he much preferred to get straight to the point. Nelson sat back in his chair and interlaced his fingers.

"Corporal…"

"Sir, I wouldn't ask if I didn't think there was a good chance."

"I know that, Corporal, but you know my position on this as well. You have been too ill too recently to resume your usual duties – brain and skull trauma of the like you suffered is not something to be shrugged off," Nelson intoned firmly but gently – the authority in his quiet, calm voice meant he rarely had to raise it. "The injuries you sustained recapturing the Fenrir prisoner were grave, even if nobody – myself included – immediately realised just how serious. You are a very fortunate young woman not only to be alive but back in your former job, if not performing your former duties. Take things slowly."

"Sir, permission to speak freely?" she asked.

"Granted," Nelson said after a contemplative pause, nodding slightly.

"I am _intimately_ aware that Fido really did a number on me. I know that I have you to thank for diagnosing the injury to my brain in time, and for having me sent to the SGC, and I know I have to thank them for performing surgery so quickly and then transferring me to the Air Force Academy Hospital for recuperation. However, to be completely honest… I'm going stir crazy precisely _because_ I've been taking things slowly ever since. I'm bored out of my skull because I have spent six months either in hospitals or on medical leave doing virtually nothing. In a way I'm grateful I got to go home and spend time with Mum but after a while… Major, despite cracked ribs, a skull fracture and serious brain trauma I've made a textbook recovery according to every doctor who has treated me and frankly I'm itching to get back to work as soon as is humanly possible, ideally before I lose my mind. I'd hate for all the hard work that you, Dr Lam and Dr Kelly put in to save my brain to go to waste because it turns to mush," Moffatt said with careful emphasis.

Nelson was silent for a moment, contemplating Moffatt's words.

"You're a clever, knowledgeable and highly observant woman – considerably more so than is typical even for a class one combat medic and at least as much as most doctors and medical officers, enough that it often leads me to wonder why you never trained as a doctor. So tell me, what are the possible long-term complications of an intracranial extradural haematoma?" he asked.

Moffatt paused, gazing at Nelson.

"Seizures are a possibility. Permanent brain injury too. Speech problems can develop and other neurological issues may arise even two years after the initial injury," she said calmly, knowing that with every word she was carrying herself another step away from a full return to her former duty.

"Correct. Now, you are and were a very fit and healthy individual with no prior history of traumatic brain injury, you had a lucid interval before you slipped into your coma and you received very prompt diagnosis and treatment – all these are factors giving you an excellent prognosis, and as you've said, so far you've made a near textbook recovery. But right now I cannot in good conscience authorise you for offworld operations or allow you to perform any duty where there is an elevated risk of further bodily injury or heightened stress – and that includes serving as a medic in this facility," Nelson said. "You and I both know that the stress you would experience were we to have to deal with mass casualties or any kind of extended medical emergency could aggravate or even undo so much of the healing you've had to endure for six months, and even day to day duties could exacerbate your condition. Therefore, until further notice you remain restricted to light duties. Just give it time, corporal."

Moffatt sighed. She had more or less known this was how it was going to turn out, but she knew she had to try. Nelson leaned across the desk.

"Remember, Kelly, you are a corporal in the British Army, you are a superb combat medic, but you are also a biologist in training, and if you don't mind me saying so, judging by the reports I've read you've neglected this aspect for quite a while – understandably, given the significance of your other roles, but perhaps you could use this downtime to focus more on your biology work?"

"I have been, sir. In the last six months I've gone about as far as I can with my biology research on paper – I need to get out and study actual specimens. While I was on Earth I even tried to get temporarily reassigned to Porton Down to study the Fenrir corpses but to no avail," Moffatt said.

"In that case, I'll happily put the new laboratories here at your disposal should you need them," Nelson said.

"I'd appreciate that. Thank you for your time Major," Moffatt said, getting up out of the chair and smiling as she tried to hide her disappointment.

* * *

"Wait, Kelly's back?"

"Yeah, she arrived at the Garrison last week, but she's not technically back on active duty yet until Nelson's completely satisfied she's fine. Personally I just think it's the Brigadier's excuse to let everybody wrap up their projects," Taylor said.

"Projects?" Halverson enquired as she unlocked a metal cabinet and pulled two torches out, checked that both worked and handed one to Taylor.

"Well, don't tell her I said this but for most of us Moffatt's recuperation turned out to be a blessing in disguise, really. And the Fenrir have been really, really quiet lately – though I'm not sure if that's a good thing, personally. Anyway, let's see… Nesbitt's been doing a tonne of research projects and obsessively studying Fido's gear in order to give us some countermeasures against further Fenrir intrusion into our computers, and he went back to Earth a few weeks ago to do some really in-depth stuff. As for Llewellyn, I've barely seen him since he's been locked in a workshop for several months," Taylor said, checking the torch out of habit even though he'd just seen Halverson do the same thing.

"How come?"

"Oh, some special engineering project he successfully pitched to Webber and that nobody will tell me about – Nesbitt knows, I think he even got drafted in to work on it for a while, but apparently he was sworn to secrecy, no matter how much food I tried to bribe him with. I think that's why he asked to continue his research at Porton Down, so I couldn't hunt him down and force it out of him. And then Llewellyn went back to Earth last week as well."

"Huh, I thought Gareth was a bit distracted when he came here. And what about you – what have you spent the last six months doing?" Halverson said as she led the way down the steps and into the fissure, lighting the way carefully.

"Me? I've been handling training and orientation for all the new teams, helping Webber with some of the admin and trying to stop Jarvis going stir crazy. Took him on a few of the training missions but it's only a matter of time before he snaps – even tried to get him seconded to the SGC for the duration, but Landry wouldn't have it, given the sensitive nature of their Lucian Alliance ops. Right, I've got to say this now looks eerily familiar, even if you have redecorated," Taylor said, gazing at his surroundings as he descended the metal steps, playing the torch beam over the surroundings. From within the fissure was a tall, narrow void with walls formed out of the same dense, coal black rock as the surface, though it was significantly less cracked and worn, having been much less exposed to the harsh elements of Lyngvi's surface.

A lot had changed since he'd last been down here – the single biggest difference was how well lit the space was now that the structurally unstable ceiling had been sensibly excavated along the length of the fissure. Skylights in the corrugated metal building above allowed a little of what passed for daylight on Lyngvi to enter the fissure, but he guessed that even with the electrical lights it clearly wasn't enough illumination to work by as thick black power cables snaked across the floor and into stands of portable electric lighting, now dim and dormant as the camp was systematically shut down.

Despite the changes and the fact that this time he was not entering it by rappelling through a narrow hole in the now non-existent roof, there was simply no mistaking it – this was the fissure Nesbitt had fortuitously discovered on their first visit to Lyngvi by falling through a weak spot in the void's ceiling, and where they'd found the Vanir tablet half-buried in the rock.

"We still call it Al's Cove, actually," Halverson said, smiling. "Poked around in here for a bit, didn't find anything other than nondescript fragments. However, when we used ground penetrating radar on the surface it told us there was so much more than just this one cave, so we started digging, and as it happened, blasting."

Halverson led the way along the length of the fissure, and Taylor noticed that the cave had been artificially expanded, a hole blasted and cut through the long solidified lava at the far end. Beyond it was another void in the black rock, but unlike the fissure it had a very definite and solid ceiling, low enough that he needed to duck a little.

"We always speculated that whatever Vanir facility was here was destroyed by a massive lava flow during a truly colossal volcanic event thousands of years ago, and for the most part that's true, but portions of it survived. Well, survived might be a strong word, since there is obvious damage by crushing, heat and quite a bit of lava intrusion, but for all intents and purposes, we think ultimately about ten to twenty per cent of the base may be accessible, given time," Halverson said.

Taylor suddenly realised that he wasn't standing in a natural void or air pocket within the lava. For one thing it had a distinctive L-shaped floor plan to it with an obvious right angle that just seemed too perfect to be naturally formed. For another there was a very regular appearance to the current space with a strangely level, even floor, and a fairly consistent width and cross section. Moving the torch around, he could make out curved metal buttresses placed at even intervals in the walls, all still half-buried to some extent in the lava that protruded between them. A couple were barely visible, encased in smooth, rounded black stone, and looking down one of the tunnels he saw that the supports at the end, immediately before the tunnel was blocked off by rock again, were warped and partly crushed inwards. In places he could make out tiny hints of metal wall between the buttresses, small patches that hadn't quite been overtaken by the once viscous molten rock that seemed to have been frozen in place as it puddled and oozed into the chamber. In others he could see entire doorways protruding between the buttresses, and the longer of the two tunnels seemed to end in another right angle turn.

"I'll tell you this much Dave – the architecture closely matches what Alistair and I saw in the Vanir chamber on P2C-355 before it was lost, which in turn is broadly similar to generic Asgard design," Halverson said.

"Are we safe in here? I mean there's a hell of a lot of rock over our heads and I'm guessing this place didn't exactly come through unscathed, right?" Taylor asked, eying the warped supports warily. He hadn't noticed any kind of structural reinforcement brought in by the dig team.

"I doubt you have anything to worry about – we've been working here for months without a problem. We know that the base's major supports and structural elements were made primarily out of trinium alloys – Alistair told me that he thinks this part of the galaxy is particularly rich in the stuff due to some exploding star or whatever – but our best guess is that the heat, weight and sheer volume of lava just overwhelmed the structure and eventually destroyed most of the parts that weren't made of trinium. The Stargate and DHD were most likely spared because they were already situated on a hillock overlooking the base and therefore just above the lava's maximum level, while everything below was flooded, melted and crushed. We haven't found any bodies, so we're pretty sure the base was evacuated before the lava actually hit," Halverson said.

"This is incredible. Absolutely incredible," Taylor breathed, smiling. "We're standing in the only known surviving Vanir structure, aren't we?"

"Oh yes. Four rooms opened and examined already, and we think we can access the level beneath this within the next month. And if you think this is good, take a look in here. We just opened it this morning," Halverson said, smiling and showing Taylor a door that sat between two of the supports.

Beyond it was a large round room. Disconcertingly, the ceiling sagged towards the middle, where the metal skin had eventually burst and admitted lava. The entire room seemed to have fared poorly, with several of the wall panels long since buckled, torn and melted. In many place he saw intrusions of black, rounded rock that seemed to have absorbed or destroyed several of the chamber's supports and one entire section of ceiling had given way on the far side of the room.

"You absolutely sure this is safe?" he asked again as she wandered inside, treading lightly.

"This room? We don't actually know yet – haven't had time to do a structural test – but it's got the same trinium supports as the halls and the circular shape should have better load-bearing properties, so we're assuming so. Just don't, you know, kick any of the supports to test them – and don't touch anything," she said, adding a friendly but nonetheless cautionary tone to her voice.

Carefully and experimentally taking a few more steps inside, Taylor studied the room again. Running around the circumference there was some sort of ledge, completely flat where it hadn't been damaged. At first glance something about it seemed odd – it was too high and wide to have served as a bench, but too low to function as a desk or table, yet there were alien looking items stood on the intact sections. Some had been scorched or melted or had otherwise succumbed to the heat of the lava or the sheer interval of time since the disaster, but others seemed to be in near pristine condition.

"Okay Elise, here's an odd question for you. Since the pictures I've seen don't have much context and I never got the chance to meet any Asgard in person before they, you know," he mimed drawing a finger across his throat, "tell me – how tall were the Vanir?" he asked idly, eying the ledge.

"Ah! You noticed the workbench, right? Okay, quick Asgard history lesson: you said you've seen photos of Asgard, right? Hairless veiny grey skin, four foot nothing, so thin you think they're going to break if you look at them? Well, roughly ten years ago SG-1 encountered an Asgard ancestor from thirty thousand years ago in stasis. That meant it predated both the loss of the Asgard's ability to reproduce sexually and their decision to perpetuate themselves through mind downloads into cloned bodies, and apart from a few things like a slightly bulbous head and pale, hairless skin, it was almost indistinguishable from human," Halverson said, wandering around the room as she talked and pointing her torch at anything that caught her eye.

"Right, okay. I think I heard something along those lines," Taylor replied, not sure where the conversation was going. "Wasn't that why they were interested in us in the first place, because we're incredibly similar to how they used to be?"

"That's definitely part of it. Well, when we checked the Asgard core, we found an interesting little bit of info. The cloning degradation they suffered, that physically turned them from healthy six foot plus humanoids into withered, shrunken four foot tall stick-thin echoes of their former selves? Because the Asgard logged their physiological changes in frankly excruciating and tedious detail, it is actually possible to date Asgard structures just by measuring the height of the furniture!" Halverson said excitedly, laughing.

"Right. So…" Taylor prompted, moving across the room to keep Halverson in view as she wandered around the central lava mass.

"Oh, right. Well, assuming the same holds true for the Vanir, and there is no reason to believe otherwise since we think they were just an ideologically distinct faction of the Asgard, then this facility is no older than about two thousand years. They would have looked almost exactly like the Asgard the SGC knew, give or take a couple of inches," Halverson said.

"Wow, that's pretty cool. Wait – Gleipnir and the Void Prison, they were made by the Vanir over ten thousand years ago, right? So the Vanir were around for at least eight thousand years after all that?"

"Yup. They probably had to have been in order for them to influence Earth's mythology."

"Eight thousand years, minimum. And yet the Asgard never mentioned them once, not even when they gifted us with their core and everything they knew, right before they ended it all. Odd," he said, crouching to look at a collection of small silver cylinders arrayed on the portion of the workbench in front of him.

"Maybe it was an embarrassing element of their history that they'd rather not face – remember, there's next to nothing about the Pegasus Asgard in the core as well, so it's not too far-fetched. But I do wonder if perhaps they didn't actually _know_? You know, it bugs me – we're fighting their war and yet we know so damn little about the Vanir. Hopefully this dig, and this room in particular, will give us a lot more answers."

"This might be a stupid question, but is there any power here? I remember Nesbitt talking about there being a Vanir reactor somewhere under the Stargate, I just wondered, given how the Asgard built their stuff to last, if…" Taylor said, leaning towards what looked like a chipped pane of glass hanging askew on the wall. He reached out to tap it experimentally.

"Don't touch that," Halverson said, shaking her head emphatically. "Nope, no power here. Either the reactor Alistair talked about was connected solely to the Stargate, or Gareth killed it when he toppled the gate, because we've seen no evidence of power at all. Frankly, after so much damage and time, it would be ridiculously unlikely," she said, scanning her torch over the sealed door on the opposite side of the laboratory to the entrance they had used, and lightly running a hand over the slightly bulging surface.

From somewhere below them, there was a rumble that felt almost like a tremor, followed quickly by a thump loud and powerful enough to make them both jump. There came a rising whine and the lights in the floor and buckled ceiling that had survived the onslaught of molten rock tried to flicker into life, a handful of them just barely succeeding while the rest died again. Somewhere inside the door and the wall it was mounted in came the unsettling creak of a jammed mechanism struggling in vain to work. Something out of sight broke or gave way and with an ear-splitting creak and more than a few sparks, the warped door cracked open a few centimetres then stopped abruptly, its deformed shape no longer able to slide into the recess. Splinters of black rock tumbled through the narrow gap for a few seconds, before everything fell silent and still once again.

Taylor warily crossed the room to Halverson, who had stepped nervously away from the door and was staring at it with shock, pointing her torch at the gap.

"Right, remind me. I could have sworn you said something about not touching anything, _Doctor_ Halverson?" Taylor said quietly as they both stared at the partly open door and the wall of fractured jet-black rock directly behind it. Halverson turned to face him with narrowed eyes, clearly ready with a cutting retort when she noticed something.

The lopsided pane of glass Taylor had nearly touched had lit up, the bright runic text scrolling rapidly across it looking like nothing so much as error messages and start-up commands. The text disappeared.

"Dave…" Halverson whispered, pointing. The angled black eyes, small protruding mouth and bulbous grey head of a Vanir occupied the display now, and it was clearly talking even though there were no words or sounds to be heard. The head vanished and was replaced by yet more runic text, only less urgent looking.

As a few of the lights flickered and died, and others simply flickered, a deep, ominous groan filled the room. The sound of tortured metal was coming from directly above their heads, and their heads turned away from the display at the sound. They waited, not daring to move or even breathe, until with little warning the lintel and ceiling above the door rapidly deformed with a loud shriek, crushing into a new asymmetrical shape in an instant before apparently settling. Black dust and tiny rock fragments drifted down from the ceiling as the juddering creak of metal under stress grew louder and more insistent.

"Right…" Taylor began, unwilling to tear his eyes off the bulging metal skin above them but slowly walking backwards, reaching out and grasping Halverson's arm as he did.

With an almighty shriek, the door jamb buckled and collapsed, removing the last vertical support for the straining ceiling above it.

"RUN!" Taylor roared, spinning and grabbing Halverson before charging for the open door they'd entered by, catching a fleeting glimpse of the suddenly very familiar looking data on the transparent display before it died and was shaken loose of the wall and smashed onto the floor. The roof behind them collapsed in a terrifyingly fast wave that radiated out from the destroyed door. The torn metal of what had been the ceiling was slammed into the floor and buried under an endless cascade of black rock. The silver cylinders sat on the workbench were instantly shattered by falling rock, spraying their contents across the room as the workbench itself was crushed into the floor. Sprinting for his life, Taylor felt small lumps and chips of rock smacking into his head, back and legs and a pressure wave indicating the collapse had caught up with him as he shoved Halverson through the gap and hurled himself after her, praying the collapse would be limited to the one chamber.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

"ELISE! MAJOR TAYLOR!"

McAlmont's voice was already hoarse, as much from shouting as from the dark dust billowing out of the tunnel and flooding the fissure. The small black particles were already being whipped into a frenzy by the increasingly strong winds, reducing visibility even further and driving the stinging, fast-moving dust into his eyes. Despite this, McAlmont stumbled forward, sweeping the torch he'd taken from the open metal cabinet back and forth as he went, hoping to pick something up. Ten metres behind him, Bhaskar, Enright and Lamont did their best to look for anything, edging forwards and trying to see or hear some sign of life while Private Langer sprinted from the Land Rovers towards the expanding cloud of dust rolling out of the shed to assist in any way he could.

A shape moved in front of McAlmont, and he whipped the torch towards it, the beam barely penetrating a metre into the cloud.

"New rule: don't so much as _breathe_ on load-bearing doors," came Taylor's muffled, croaking voice as he staggered out of the tunnel in the fissure, using the crook of one arm to keep dust out of his mouth and nose, with only partial success. The moment he finished speaking, he began coughing and spluttering.

"Actually, make that two new rules: get between me and a long, hot shower and I won't be responsible for the consequences," Halverson said, her voice angry and rasping, emerging from the dig site behind him, her mouth and nose similarly shielded. Both of them were covered in fine black dust and coughing, their eyes reddened and streaming.

Bhaskar, Enright and Lamont breathed a collective sigh of relief and walked over, while Private Langer, still more than ten metres away from the shed covering the dig site, slowed to a jog upon seeing Taylor and Halverson emerge more or less unscathed.

"Good god! Are you two okay? We heard the noise, looked over and saw –" McAlmont started to say. Irritably, Taylor waved him off as he continued coughing, and headed slowly out of the building. Halverson trudged after him, the wind and rain already removing much of the black dust.

"Just… just get us back to the Garrison. And if you've got about five litres of water on you it might help," Halverson said.

"I'll take ten," Taylor croaked before descending into another paroxysm of coughing.

Fighting against the rising wind Langer jogged up to the group as McAlmont guided Halverson away from the shed and the others attempted to do the same for Taylor with negligible success as he kept irritably shrugging them off and staggering away on his own.

"Sir! Are you well enough to drive?" Langer yelled at Taylor.

"I don't know. Why?"

"The Garrison just radioed, and it's very urgent – the weather guys got it wrong, they're now saying the storm's picked up speed and it's going to be even more severe than they'd expected. Fifty mile an hour winds, fifteen below and heavy snow fall, all hours earlier than expected. We have to get moving _now_."

* * *

"Sergeant, report as soon as you get to your destination," the radio crackled.

Jarvis jogged along the clanking steel catwalk with gloved hands permanently on the freezing cold railings, the gaping maw of the cavern mouth now directly ahead of him. The catwalk was suspended dozens of metres over the bare rock and brown puddles of the cave floor by heavy duty bolts and steel cables, swaying and flexing slightly as he moved along it, and Jarvis was once again grateful he had no problem with heights – from floor to ceiling the cavern mouth could accommodate Lincoln Cathedral with plenty of room to spare, or Nelson's Column more than twice over.

As he neared the end of the catwalk, the howling wind tearing at the DPM windproof smock he wore, he gazed at the landscape beyond and steadied himself against the railings. The sky was dark, partly because of the thick, dense clouds beginning to disgorge their hefty cargo of snow and partly because of the terminator speeding across the surface of the Mars-sized world as it orbited fully into the vast shadow of the still unnamed Jovian gas giant, cutting it off entirely from the dim star at the centre of the system they called Amsvartnir.

"Here, sir. The observation posts in the Tor have been evacuated and sealed, and the upper levels of the base are nearly done, just enough staff to lock everything down and seal all entrances," he said into the radio, leaning slightly over the edge of the catwalk and watching a group of soldiers moving crates and barrels beamed into the cave from _Odyssey_'s last supply run inside the hangar. "Conditions are getting worse with every minute. Stand by… I think I see headlights."

He continued to watch through narrowed eyes as the dim points of light grew closer and brighter in the snow-filled gloom. Within seconds a small convoy of Land Rovers were picking their way carefully across the rock over a hundred metres below him and into the relative safety and shelter of the cave.

"I count four vehicles… looks like the Site 03 construction crews have arrived, but there's still no sign of the group from the dig site. They're behind schedule, and the storm seems to be ahead of it," Jarvis said into the radio held against his face.

"Agreed. We still don't have a good enough understanding of Lyngvi's weather, despite the satellites _Odyssey_ put into orbit. According to their telemetry they're reporting wind speeds of thirty-five miles an hour plus already, and the temperature just dropped below minus ten Celsius and it shows no sign of stopping. We were told this would be a particularly severe night. Radio me the instant they're in sight, Sergeant. We are at amber alert and are ready for lockdown the moment the Site 02 team are inside – I don't want the base exposed to the temperatures, winds and snow we've been told to expect. Webber out," the Brigadier said.

"Come on Major, where the hell are you?" Jarvis muttered.

* * *

The growl of the two turbo diesel engines was drowned out by the roar of the rising wind. With Lyngvi almost entirely in the shadow of its gas giant primary, the sky had turned pitch black and the world was cut off from solar heating. Snow fell from the pregnant, threatening clouds in ever thickening droves and the headlights of the Land Rovers were showing less and less of the bumpy terrain ahead as the two vehicles bounced and skidded across the land.

"Jesus Christ! Hey kid, are you absolutely sure we're going fast enough? I feel like we should be _really_ risking our lives right now!" McAlmont said as Langer hauled the vehicle's steering wheel to the right to counteract the skid before it truly started and his passengers desperately tried to grab hold of something to stop themselves being hurled around the inside of the vehicle.

"Trust me Pete, we don't want to be caught in one of these storms, and Private Langer's trained to drive like this," Halverson said from the front passenger seat, gripping the dashboard tightly with one hand and bracing herself against the roof with the other as the Land Rover Wolf bounced along the rough track that served to connect the Garrison and the dig site at a speed well beyond safe. The heathery vegetation that lined the landscape was rippling in the rising wind, but already beginning to shrink, a mechanism Moffatt had first noticed for better surviving the hostile conditions of the long night.

"Base goes into lockdown at seventeen hundred hours no matter what," Langer said breathlessly without taking his eyes off what little he could see of the crude road ahead. The windscreen wipers were already on full and the headlights were getting less and less useful.

"You mean we're travelling at breakneck speed across a rough landscape in insane visibility because we've got eighteen minutes to get back before we're locked out for good?!" McAlmont protested, incredulous.

"Yes, so shut up and let the guy drive!" Halverson said. "The more ground we cover now the easier we can take it when it gets really bad – and it will."

* * *

The wind tore at everything, the alien heather outside having collapsed itself to ride out the storm. Jarvis shielded his face with one heavily insulated arm, his eyes and what little flesh he had dared to expose simultaneously numb and stinging from the elements. Even shielded from the worst of the winds and the biting snow by the cave walls, the catwalk was becoming unsafe and snow was already blowing deep into the cave and settling in the craggy walls, and it was getting thicker with every passing minute. He fought to hold his wrist in front of his eyes and struggled to read the face of the watch through watering, blurry eyes. The roar of the blizzard was overwhelming, but as he strained his ears, Jarvis thought he heard something else.

"– gant, come in. I repeat…"

"HERE SIR!" Jarvis shouted into the radio, wishing he had found time to grab a throat microphone and earpiece to better communicate under the circumstances. "NO SIGN YET!"

"– not safe. Lockdown imminent – get back inside, I repeat, get back inside now!"

Jarvis scanned the landscape outside of the cave desperately. Visibility was almost non-existent and as much as he hated to admit it, the Brigadier was absolutely correct – they couldn't risk the base any longer. Reluctantly, the marine turned and started running as fast as he dare along the metal catwalk back to the safety of the Garrison, hoping the Major and his team had either stayed put at the dig site or found shelter somewhere else – while he knew the Garrison's small pool of vehicles were winterised, they just weren't equipped to deal with the ferocity of the storm that heralded Lyngvi's long night and keep their occupants alive under those conditions.

"ON MY WAY SIR!" he yelled into the radio as an afterthought, before realising he was missing something. He turned around and looked down just in time to see the first Land Rover Wolf punch through the wall of falling snow outside the cave and screech across the now snow covered rock floor, its turbo diesel engine revving furiously as it dashed towards the already closing hangar door at the rear of the cave, followed seconds later by another vehicle. Relieved, Jarvis sprinted as fast as he could along the length of the catwalk to the point that it disappeared into the cave wall, pulling the heavy duty hatch shut behind him. He climbed hurriedly down the caged ladder to the hangar floor.

The huge metal doors were rapidly closing, the gap still admitting a blast of cold air and flakes of snow blown all the way from the cave entrance, and the two Land Rovers were haphazardly parked in the middle of the concrete apron, with snow accumulated in every nook and cranny and rendering the tyres slick and wet. As the occupants of the two vehicles slowly climbed out Jarvis did a quick headcount before clicking the radio.

"They've arrived sir, all personnel accounted for. Hangar doors closing now, base will be fully sealed in less than thirty seconds," he said breathlessly.

"Acknowledged, sergeant. Webber out," the Brigadier replied.

"I'm seriously starting to hate this planet's penchant for Hoth impersonations," Taylor muttered as he staggered out of the driver's side of the second vehicle before a dry cough seized his lungs. For reasons Jarvis couldn't work out and thought best not to ask, both he and Halverson looked like they'd just spent the day working in a coal mine, fine black dust falling off them as they moved.

"Everything okay? You were cutting that ridiculously close," Jarvis addressed the group, breath misting in the still sub-zero air. As if to punctuate his remark, the hangar doors closed with a heavy metal thud and Gibson's voice came over the public address system.

"All personnel, the base is now in lockdown until first light. Lockdown ends in thirty-seven hours. Personnel are advised to evacuate and seal Section W within the next thirty minutes as a precautionary measure. Environmental controls are being adjusted to counter the drop in temperature. That is all."

"No, everything is not okay – the dig's completely trashed thanks to a cave-in and we were very all very nearly frozen solid," Halverson complained, before saying with a smile, "although Private Langer handling the Land Rover like a possessed rally driver was admittedly a little bit thrilling."

"Damn it's cold in here," Taylor said, rubbing his hands and hugging his chest tightly.

"We had to hold the doors open to the last possible minute waiting for you, sir, so the base got a bit chilled," Jarvis replied.

"Great, so Webber's going to give me hell for sending our heating bill through the roof as well."

* * *

The raging blizzard was in full swing only a few hours later, and while the heavy hangar doors deep in the cave had been sealed and the upper level almost evacuated save for the technicians fussing over the last two vehicles to arrive, several hundred feet below the surface another cold storm seemed to be developing.

"So, now that Major Nelson has more or less cleared the pair of you, would one of you kindly mind telling me what the bloody hell happened out there?"

Drinking another glass of water as he sat at the briefing table, Taylor couldn't quite tell if this tone was Webber's everyday-irate one, or actually-irate one. Looking across the table at Halverson, long black hair slicked back and skin glowing after a blissfully hot, long shower that rid her of the rock dust, he could see that she was also undecided but a little unsettled either way. It didn't help that, as usual, Webber was more interested in the ever-present stack of paperwork in front of him.

"Put simply, part of the Vanir ruins were… unstable. A section we had only just opened up for study, one that looked like a laboratory, turned out to be…"

"Somewhat lacking in structural integrity," Taylor suggested diplomatically.

"That's about it. There's no indication the rest of the base is affected, just that room, so I'm guessing the collapse has set us back several weeks, maybe a month, but from what I saw it's not a total loss, just a monumental pain in the arse."

"Of all people, I never would have suspected that _you_ would have a gift for understatement, Doctor, because this sounds to me like much more than a pain in the rear, monumental or otherwise. However, right now I confess I am still at a loss as to precisely _how_ this happened," Webber said drily, looking up from his paperwork for the first time since the debriefing had begun and fixing Taylor and Halverson in turn with an icy stare.

Halverson fidgeted slightly.

"The power came back on – or at least tried to," she said, her tone starting to get slightly defensive.

"I was under the impression that the facility's reactor was a complete loss," Webber said.

"Going by every test we ran we thought that was the case, but maybe it was just dormant, or maybe this was some kind of back-up system. We're still not completely sure what caused the power to come on at all – it must have been something specific to that room, because we've been in what we've excavated of the rest of the base for months without ever seeing a hint of life," Halverson said.

Webber scribbled something down on the papers in front of him and sighed.

"Anything else?"

"Yes sir," Taylor said. "One of the displays came up momentarily and showed a Stargate address, but it was gone so quickly I can't remember the sequence at all."

"Did you see this address, Doctor?" Webber asked.

"Oh yeah, I did, but like Dave I can't remember it. It was only there for a fraction of a second and we had more important things to think about, after all. However, I'm pretty sure it should be recoverable – we didn't really stop to check, but the damage seemed confined to that room and we're guessing the Vanir used distributed computing like the Asgard so it's unlikely the data is truly lost," Halverson said.

"Well, at the moment we can't send anybody out to perform a proper assessment of the damage to the site," Webber said, putting his pen down and leaning back in his chair. "The latest surface telemetry shows wind speeds of fifty-two miles per hour and rising, and a surface temperature of minus sixteen degrees and falling. Once the long night has passed and the temperature has risen enough for us to safely venture outside the base again, I'm making it a priority that we see what state the Vanir ruins are in and whether anything can be recovered from the wrecked laboratory. At the moment, there is nothing you or your team can do Doctor, except go over what you've brought back. It's a disappointing turn of events, but going by what I've heard, perhaps not one that we could have foreseen. In the meantime, we have other things to deal with, and on that note I expect the pair of you to be ready, presentable and in the Gatehouse for eighteen fifty-five. That is all."

* * *

Flustered, Halverson hurried through the hatch, finding Webber, Taylor, Jarvis, Nelson and the other senior members of staff waiting in a group a few metres in front of the Stargate. Webber gave her a brief icy stare before returning his attention to the dialling gate.

"Forget what time it was?" Taylor teased as Halverson walked swiftly up to him. She glared at him briefly, smoothing her top and checking her clothes.

"Should I have put something smarter on? I don't know what the protocol is for things like this," she said.

"You look fine Elise, stop fussing. We're not meeting royalty or staff officers, and you don't see anybody military here in dress uniform, do you? What you've got on is fine," Taylor said.

"I'm surprised you didn't do anything with your hair though," Jarvis muttered wryly as he stood still next to her.

"What?! What's wrong with my hair?" Halverson said, her hands going up to her head in panic, missing Jarvis resolutely staring forward as the hint of a smile crept across his face.

"Elise, he's messing with you, which he'll stop immediately unless he wants latrine duty for a week. Or to be reassigned as Nesbitt's assistant when the good doctor comes back. Trust me, you look fine," Taylor said, hiding a smirk.

"Dave, I have no idea who we're meeting! In case you hadn't noticed, I've been sort of out of touch with things here for a few months!" Halverson protested loudly.

"Right, quick recap for you then – after the whole Fido Incident, our government, the US government and the IOA discussed our future. One of the conditions of our continued operation and funding is that we have an International Oversight Advisory representative permanently stationed here," Taylor said.

"An IOA rep? Oh, joy," Halverson groaned as the chevrons on the Stargate illuminated simultaneously. The gate whined and burst into bright, luminous life, dappled blue-white light playing over the far wall of the cave.

"Stargate Command's IDC confirmed, retracting Iris," Sergeant Gibson said over the public address system. "Traveller inbound."

The puddle rippled and high heels clicked on the concrete floor, a rolling suitcase in tow.

Jarvis jutted his head forwards, his eyes first going wide in surprise then narrowing as he studied the new arrival. "Whoa. Nice ti –"

"Sergeant!" Taylor whispered harshly through gritted teeth.

"– legs," Jarvis finished without missing a beat.

"Oh my, that's rather an experience, isn't it?" the newly arrived brunette said in a perfectly enunciated, somewhat upper class English accent, looking back over her shoulder as she stepped away from the event horizon. She looked like she was in her late twenties or early thirties, immaculately turned out in expensive Italian leather shoes, pencil skirt and matching jacket over a silk blouse. In addition to the suitcase trundling behind her, she had a handbag over one shoulder and a briefcase in her other hand – everything about her screamed money and business. Halverson snorted derisively and bit her lip to contain her smirk.

"Oh, yes, she's going to fit right in. Oh God, I hope she didn't forget her diamond necklace and ball gown!" she said mockingly.

"What an interesting… cave," the woman said, smiling politely and uncertainly as she gazed at her surroundings, before turning her attention to the group in front of her and setting down her briefcase and suitcase.

"I'm Brigadier James Webber. Welcome to Lyngvi Garrison, Miss…?" Webber said as he stepped forward and extended his hand.

"Ms Felicity Armstrong-Forbes, but everyone calls me Fliss," she said, smiling broadly and shaking the proffered hand.

"Of course they do…" Halverson muttered. She turned and saw the expression on Taylor's face as he gazed at the newcomer. "Dave, you're seconds away from drooling on the floor."

"What? Hey, don't take it out on me just because you're feeling threatened and a bit catty. And if anybody's smitten, it's Jarvis," Taylor said defensively, snapping his attention back to Halverson.

"I am not feeling threatened! Why would I feel threatened?" she protested quietly as Webber continued to introduce the assembled group one by one.

* * *

"Norway? How quaint! I ski there – do you know Sven?"

"Oh God, she didn't actually say that did she?" Moffatt laughed as Halverson shifted in her seat on the other side of the desk, nursing a strong coffee. As a corporal, Moffatt didn't rate having her own office or laboratory but her quarters were sufficiently large enough for her to use them for both of those purposes. She had moved her plain military issue desk, table and bookcase together to create an effective workstation with a deceptive amount of space. Besides the open laptop her desk was occupied by a terrarium, a lamp and stacks of biology textbooks and folders filled with paper.

"Well, no, not quite. But what the hell kind of woman gets posted to a military base, in a cave, on a hostile frozen world that is sixty-seven thousand light years from Earth, that serves as the frontline facility in a conflict against vicious alien werewolves… and chooses to arrive in stiletto heels and a pencil skirt?!"

Moffatt opened her mouth to answer but Halverson cut her off.

"I'll tell you what kind, because I know them only too well – she was probably educated at Roedean School and St Hilda's College, has a house in Kensington that Daddy paid for and a weekend home in Tuscany. Trust me, she won't last five minutes here," Halverson said bitterly.

Moffatt patiently sipped a steaming mug of tea, and after a few seconds pause, looked up at Halverson and said sagely, "Okay, she really touched a nerve, didn't she? I'm going out on a limb here and guessing you weren't exactly one of the popular girls at school or uni, right?"

"Hell no. Where and why do you think I developed my charming, tolerant, level-headed personality?" Halverson said. Moffatt's mouth hung open as she tried to formulate a tactful response, until she saw the knowing expression and sly grin on Halverson's face and smiled. "Look, back then my idea of a good time was being up to my elbows in Scandinavian soil pulling Viking chieftains out of the ground, not being up to my neck in debt and alcohol and pulling blokes in the bar every night. I mean, not that I didn't do my fair share of that, but still…"

"Well if she's that ridiculous I'm surprised Harriman didn't radio any kind of… warning. Sergeant Gibson says he's normally very good like that, you know – passing on discrete but useful comments," Moffatt said, shrugging.

"Oh please, he'd have been hypnotised by her arse as she was going up the ramp to the Stargate. You should have seen Dave and Colin when she came through," Halverson said, almost spitting venom.

"Ah, so she's not exactly plain looking then?" Moffatt said knowingly, sipping her own tea.

"No, she's not… the nauseating cow. I would say I know exactly how she's got where she is but she couldn't actually be further from the type of person who does that, because do you know what the very worst thing of all is about her?"

"She's a Norwegian-hating, anthropologist-ridiculing former model? Seriously, I have no idea. Go on, tell me," Moffatt said patiently.

"When we were doing all the introductions, she came across as really, really… _nice_," Halverson said, screwing her face up in disgust.

Moffatt made an exaggeratedly dramatic gasp, her eyes widened in faux-shock and cried "The bitch!" before a grin slid across her face.

"You know, I hate it when people turn out to be nice, it makes it so much harder to dislike them. Anyway – what I meant to come here to say was 'how are you Kelly? Good to see you back!' but clearly I got a bit side-tracked. Sorry – you should have said something," Halverson said apologetically.

"Don't worry about it. I'm just glad to be chatting with you – don't take this the wrong way, but six months of talking to nurses, doctors, patients and relatives… I need conversation with somebody who knows what I actually do for a living, somebody who can relate, somebody who knows I wasn't involved in a serious car crash but was actually hurled headfirst into a rock wall by an alien werewolf. Besides, I like catching up on everything that's happened while I've been away," Moffatt said.

"Ah, well, I can't help you there. Since Webber took us off the offworld roster, I've spent most of that time at the dig. Try talking to our tank of a Royal Marine sergeant instead, Dave said he's going a bit stir crazy."

"I think I can relate."

"But still, sorry for monopolising the conversation," Halverson said. Moffatt shook her head emphatically.

"Really, don't worry about it. At least you didn't start by tilting your head and asking how I'm doing – I don't think I can take that even once more. As it happens I'm not too bad, medically speaking, though I'm confined to light duties for the foreseeable future. Problem is it'll be a while before I'm cleared for offworld missions again – assuming I am actually cleared again," Moffatt said.

"Why wouldn't you be? I thought they caught it in time?" Halverson said, concerned.

"Well, see, that's the problem with the injury I had… intracranial extradural haematoma – even after the surgery and even when everything looks right, there's always a slight risk of complications, but Lam, Nelson and everybody at the Academy Hospital say I made a superb recovery – textbook, one doctor said. Major Nelson caught it very early and told Doctor Lam everything she needed to know before they even wheeled me through the gate," Moffatt said, her tone appreciative. "I got to go home for a while and spend time with my mum, which was nice, but since I'm on light duties I'm not allowed to work as a medic in the field, and Nelson doesn't want me in the infirmary either."

"What? Why?" Halverson protested.

"He wants to minimise the risk of me being in any situation that could cause any kind of relapse or complication, and suggested that now I can focus on research. I've spent so long here as a combat medic, I had all but abandoned my biology research, but now I've got the perfect excuse to get back to it."

Halverson put down her nearly empty mug and paused.

"You don't sound all that happy about that," she said.

"I was kind of hoping to get back offworld. My job is providing medical assistance and biological assessments in the field, not sitting in a lab. I like my job, I miss my job, but I suppose the research is a decent compromise and in all fairness I forgot how much I enjoyed doing it, so it's fine by me. For now."

Halverson nodded and smiled happily.

"Well, it's definitely good to have you back Kelly, no matter what you're doing," Halverson said.

"Thanks."

"Anyway, I have a couple of questions to ask you, just to sate my curiosity," she said.

"Okay, shoot," Moffatt said.

"First off… one thing I've never understood – why do you call him Major Nelson? I thought he was a doctor?"

Moffatt smiled. "Well, yes he is, but more specifically, he's a medical officer in the Royal Army Medical Corps. Technically that means he doesn't use the title 'Doctor', and instead he should be addressed by rank, but he won't call you out on it if you call him 'Doctor', especially in an informal manner."

"Ah, okay. I think I understand now. Okay, second question… what the hell is that?" she said, gesturing to the terrarium sat on Moffatt's desk. It was a surprisingly large one, close to a metre in length and filled with several centimetres of black gravel and specimens of heathery vegetation identical to the plants coating Lyngvi's surface. Barely visible amid the vegetation was a fuzzy, pale grey line that moved slowly between the plants.

"Oh, yes, him. Okay, you know those furry, vegetarian snake-like animals we found on the surface? A few days ago I was able to go out onto the surface for the purposes of my research, and while there I caught one," Moffatt said, reaching over and removing the lid. After a few seconds of poking around inside, she slowly withdrew the docile animal and set it on the desk between Halverson and herself. "Go on, you can stroke him if you like. These things are docile as hell."

Halverson studied the foot-long creature. It had tiny black eyes on each side of its head that somehow reminded Halverson of those belonging to a rodent, a wide mouth and a limbless body covered in pale grey fur, and when she hesitantly stroked it, she found it to be dense but as soft as silk. The creature seemed unfazed by the attention or the change in environment and simply continued snaking slowly around the work-surface. Moffatt leaned over to the terrarium again and plucked a few leaves and stems from the vegetation she had transplanted then placed them in front of the animal. Smelling the vegetation, it stopped and started munching on the plant matter. It's slow, deliberate movements and toothless mouth reminded Halverson of watching tortoises munching on lettuce.

"Does he have a name?" she asked, holding a small leaf for Nero to eat as she stroked the surprisingly silky but dense fur that covered the animal.

"Yeah. I call him Nero. Some of the things I've learned from him already are astonishing, their adaptations to this environment are remarkable. I'm now sure that the xenoheather and these things, Woolly Herbophids are all engineered organisms that form part of an intentionally simplified ecosystem for the purpose of terraforming. The xenoheather generates a breathable atmosphere while the woolly Herbophids feeding maintains the xenoheather and promotes its growth while their burrowing helps break up the rock and aerate the soil, a bit like earthworms. I'm yet to find out what maintains the woolly herbophid population, but there are certainly other organisms involved in the whole system, though they're mostly microbes."

"Kelly, that reminds me of something I meant to ask you a while back, actually, before you, you know, got thrown into a granite wall by an enraged alien… we don't have much information to go on in the first place, but in trying to understand the Fenrir culture and language, I think I've gone as far as I can. They're actually a lot more alien than a lot of the races the SGC or the Atlantis Expedition encountered purely by dint of not having much connection to humans that I can see – Ancients are basically the original humans, Goa'uld use human hosts, Jaffa are an engineered human offshoot, Wraith incorporate a tonne of human DNA, and even the Asgard were very similar to and interested in us," Halverson said.

"So what you're saying is, you don't think you can make much more headway understanding Fenrir language or culture until you better understand Fenrir biology?" Moffatt asked.

"Basically, yes."

"Well, I can get some of the Porton Down and Area 51 reports to you if that'll help, and I can throw together a couple of files combining all field observations of the Fenrir and my own thoughts, but I'll have to work on those for you. However, to start you off in the right direction I'll tell you that you need to know how the Four F's of Biology apply to the Fenrir," Moffatt said.

"And the Four F's of Biology are…?"

"Fighting, fleeing, feeding and mating."


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

The office was a small, drab, undecorated box made of concrete and located deep in the recently completed administration section of the Garrison. There was exceedingly little furniture other than a filing cabinet, a simple metal desk and two office chairs, and with the exception of an expensive looking laptop and for some reason a smartphone, precious little equipment.

Fliss was sat at the desk with her hands poised over the keyboard of her laptop and wearing an expression that mixed consternation, concern and confusion, but as soon as Halverson knocked on the door she stood up, her face now beaming.

"You wanted to see me?" Halverson said, remaining stony-faced.

"Please, come in and have a seat. I would offer you some coffee or tea, but I'm afraid I'm not sure who to ask…" Fliss said uncertainly but always smiling. Halverson suddenly got an idea of how young, sheltered and inexperienced Fliss actually was.

"We tend to get it from the mess hall. You know… ourselves," Halverson said slowly, trying not to inject sarcasm or venom into her voice. For a moment Halverson felt a fleeting moment of pity for Fliss as she realised just how out of place this young woman was. "This isn't remotely what you were expecting, is it?"

"Oh, well, it's certainly… different. I mean, I was briefed on everything and I've been part of the IOA for nearly a year now, but when you actually experience it for the first time…" Fliss trailed off. "Anyway! I'm facilitating a sequence of preliminary interviews with all department heads, critical team members and unit leaders as a means to better acquaint and orient myself and my superiors with the progress, efficiency and efficacy of the on-going operation here from the perspective of the personnel directly involved and so that you can communicate to me any matters that may need addressing vis-à-vis the involvement and support of the International Oversight Advisory and affiliated organisations."

Halverson blinked, temporarily speechless as she mentally translated the pseudo-management-speak. Somehow, she felt disappointed that the word 'synergy' had been left out.

"Okay… well, here's something I'm wondering. Since there are a number of department heads with substantially smaller or larger departments than mine as well as surnames that start before 'H', for example Jamie Banner's catering department, I'm guessing the reason I'm first is because you heard something happened earlier and you think you should write a report about it as soon as humanly possible in order to impress the IOA bigwigs. How close am I?" Halverson said.

"Oh, I only heard something exciting happened out at some dig and thought I'd get an early start," Fliss stuttered apologetically.

"Ah, thought so. Well, that 'something exciting' was the probable loss of vital artefacts that could have shed light on the mystery of the Vanir and the setting back of my team's painstaking work probably by almost as many months as we've been working on it. So I really hope it makes a riveting report to IOA headquarters that advances your career because that'll make everything just fine and dandy," Halverson said, feeling the anger and sarcastic tone she had held in check seeping back into her voice.

"I'm really sorry, I didn't mean to offend," Fliss said quickly. "I'd heard you saw a gate address or something but that you couldn't remember – "

"Wait! Boötes, Taurus, Norma, Microscopium, Canis Minor, Monoceros and Lyngvi's point of origin… quick, write that down!" Halverson said quickly.

"What? Sorry?"

"Oh for god's sake!" Halverson said, grabbing the pen and notepad Fliss had readied for herself and already tidily written a handful of notes on. "Now, what did I say?"

"I have no –"

"Boötes," Halverson said to herself, scrawling the name and the angular shape of the glyph. "Taurus, Norma, Microscopium, Canis Minor, Monoceros… point of origin. Wow… that was unexpected."

Fliss suddenly seemed a lot less certain of herself than she had done a minute before. "Brigadier Webber's notes said that you only saw it for a fraction of a second, that you couldn't remember the address. So how…"

* * *

_Standing on the lawn, she couldn't help but feel a little sadness as she watched her parents and the removal men empty their house, the lorry already half full of cardboard boxes of various sizes and the few items of furniture they hadn't sold, but there was also an inescapable sense of excitement over such a big change in their lives._

"_Why do we have to go?"_

_Elise looked down at her five year old brother clutching her hand and staring up at her. Because she was the eldest at ten years, their mother had given her the task of watching over her siblings and keeping them out of the way, as well as entrusting her with a carrier bag full of drinks and treats to keep them all happy that she dutifully hadn't opened yet. Meanwhile the grown-ups emptied the only home Elise's brother and sister had known, both of them too young to remember the small house they had lived in when they had called Stavanger their home town – her brother hadn't even been born then. She only had vague, fleeting memories of it herself – she had much fonder memories of this house, but soon they would be leaving Oslo as well._

"_Because Daddy got a better job, but it's in England," she said. Behind them their sister – younger than Elise by only two years, but nevertheless very different in personality – was playing noisily by herself, unwilling to join her siblings as usual._

"_I don't want to go," Tomas complained. "I like it here!"_

"_You'll like it in England as well. That's where Mummy came from, you know, and we're going to have an even bigger house than this, and a really big garden," Elise said, before she switched languages effortlessly. "And don't forget you really should talk in English more, like Mummy taught us. Remember, they don't speak Norwegian in England."_

"_Where is England?" Tomas enquired in slightly broken, slow English. Elise smiled at him for trying._

"_It's really far away, on the other side of the world!" a mocking voice called from the other side of the garden._

"_Brigit, you shouldn't say things like that. No it isn't, Tomas. Don't listen to her," Elise said soothingly as Tomas' eyes widened at their sister's jibe. "England's over the sea, but it's not really far."_

"_But if it's over the sea, how will the postman bring us all our letters?" Tomas asked innocently._

_Elise couldn't help but laugh, but quickly had to comfort Tomas when he looked ashamed and upset for saying something silly – she knew her brother was quite sensitive at the best of times, but it didn't help that Brigit mocked him mercilessly every chance she got, to the point that Elise inevitably had to control her unruly younger sister and comfort Tomas when their parents weren't around. As consolation for making her brother feel bad, she pulled one of the chocolate bars out of the carrier bag in her other hand and handed it to him. His eyes and face lit up at the sight of the familiar red, yellow and green wrapper._

"_It's okay. We'll have a different postman in England. We'll even have a completely different address."_

* * *

"No, seriously, why are you inflicting this on me? Twice in one day?" Halverson asked as she sat on the edge of the bed. Major Nelson moved around behind her to continue his examination.

"It's just a precaution, nothing to be worried about Elise. You were acting a bit odd, apparently. Erratic behaviour, eyes glazed over, talking to people who weren't there… that sort of thing," Taylor said, standing facing her with his arms crossed.

"Oh please, it's her, isn't it? That bloody little privileged, vacuous, pony-riding do-gooder made this happen, didn't she? Who's she to say I'm behaving erratically – she's never met me before!" Halverson said angrily.

"You really don't like Fliss, do you?" Taylor said, frowning.

"No I don't. She's posh and she's too nice. I don't trust people who are too nice, and besides, she reminds me of several people I'd rather not be reminded of – you know what, she reminds me a lot of Kimberly Sullivan at university, the stuck up cow, and Jennifer Carson back in secondary school, and how they were always being handed things that everybody else had to work hard for just because their families had money and connections and they had looks. Even back in primary school, Jenny got the lead roles in all the plays just because her dad owned a car dealership and was on the board of governors. We did Alice in Wonderland, and guess who played Alice even though she couldn't even act! Heh, I remember how Jake Tunstall was so looking forward to playing the Mad Hatter and then he went and broke his leg climbing that weird sycamore tree in his back garden on Church Lane. Wow… I haven't thought about that in years," Halverson said excitedly, trailing off with a glazed expression on her face. Taylor shot Nelson a slightly concerned glance, who returned it.

"You sure you're feeling okay? You've not skipped any meals or missed out on sleep or something?" Nelson asked Halverson in his diluted Jamaican accent.

"No, of course not. I got a good seven and a half hours – well, seven hours forty-two minutes – followed by a bigger than usual breakfast because I knew it was going to be a long day packing everything up and shutting everything down," she replied in a matter-of-fact manner.

"What did you have?" Taylor asked casually, taking a seat on the bed opposite.

"Three rashers of streaky bacon, two sausages, a fried tomato, mushrooms, refried baked beans, two slices of toast with low-fat spread – a concession to my guilty conscience over such a fattening meal – and a mug of black coffee with two sweeteners. Why?" Halverson said without pausing.

"No reason. Just curious."

"Have you taken any medication today, Doctor?" asked Nelson as he raised an ophthalmoscope to Halverson's right eye.

"No – now what's the problem? What's this all about?"

Taylor looked at Nelson, who nodded subtly.

"That gate address –" Taylor began.

"You mean the one from the Vanir lab? It's Boötes, Taurus, Norma, Microscopium, Canis Minor, Monoceros and our point of origin," Halverson said, the words flowing quickly and effortlessly. "I wrote it down so you could check it out."

"Yeah… Elise, how are you able to remember that?" Taylor said, his face screwed up in something between concern and confusion. All of a sudden, Halverson was silent, staring worriedly at him.

"I… don't know. I just remember it, very clearly."

"It was on the screen for about a quarter of a second, if that, and we were running for our lives out of a collapsing room. Now I don't want this to sound horrible, but I'm trained to observe and remember fleeting details and stuff like that, and I can't remember a single glyph. More to the point, I happen to know that you are somebody who has forgotten her own birthday at least once, regularly can't remember many of her department colleague's first names and gave up on two diets because she'd lost track of what she'd eaten at her last meal," Taylor said. "And yet all of a sudden you're Miss Memory. I'm just a little concerned, and apparently Fliss was as well, so… maybe cut her some slack?"

Halverson was quiet, contemplative.

"So… my memory's been, what, enhanced?" she asked, eyes wide as the realisation and significance hit her. "Sweet! This is going to be so useful! "

"Well, strictly speaking I'd say it's not your memory as such, but most likely your ability to recall memories which in and of itself is quite bizarre. I'll have to insist on a blood test, blood cultures, CT scan and a psych evaluation, among other things," Major Nelson said.

"Is that really necessary, or do you just want to use me as a guinea pig so you can play with all your new toys?" Halverson replied. To Taylor's surprise, Nelson's face split into a huge grin.

"Okay, yes, I'll admit it's nice to have a fully equipped, fully staffed, cutting edge medical facility under my control rather than a few dusty tents in the middle of Afghanistan, but trust me, none of those tests are extraneous. Right now I haven't got a clue what might be causing this, and I'd like to find out sooner rather than later," he said. "You may be enjoying it at the moment, but this could be an early symptom of a much more serious condition," Nelson said.

"Such as?" Halverson asked.

"I'm not sure. Off the top of my head, I'd say maybe traumatic brain injury, exposure to exotic chemicals, electric shock or even some kind of genetic condition. Worse still, we are on an alien planet and we are in the Stargate Program, so it really could be anything. Now, it could be benign, but until I know better I'm going to insist on tests and constant monitoring," Nelson replied, scribbling something on his clipboard.

"Ugh, fine," Halverson said. "But if whatever it is turns out not to be harmful, I don't want anything done to reverse it, alright? Believe me when I say that this could be one of the best things that ever happened to me."

"Hey, rather you than me," Taylor said, pulling a face of disgust. "Far, far too much stuff in my life I would definitely rather not remember."

* * *

The Garrison's Department of Anthropology & Archaeology had a main laboratory and general workshop that had seen very little use in the past few months, but with the ice storm raging on the surface and the dig site temporarily abandoned, it was now a hive of activity. The Vanir outpost had yielded a wealth of small artefacts for study, as well as a tremendous amount of data for them to analyse.

"So he just let you go?" Bhaskar said as he carried another box of Vanir artefacts in plastic bags to his workbench. Lamont grinned as he went back to examining another of the artefacts in detail.

"Yes, after three and a half hours of tests, talking to shrinks and the removal of a variety of fluids and tissues from my body, Nelson 'just' let me go," Halverson said sarcastically, smirking. "He and his team couldn't find any evidence of injury, infection, psychological trauma or, frankly, anything. Other than having improved recall, I'm completely normal, ordinary and my usual self."

"Normal and usual except for the creepy and uncharacteristic happiness?" Lamont said drily.

"If you were in my position, you wouldn't be able to stop grinning either. I have no idea what happened to me, but this is going to radically improve my life," Halverson said, looking through a box of not yet catalogued artefacts and writing something on her clipboard. "Nelson said he couldn't think of one convincing reason to keep me in the infirmary, so I get to be here, with you lot, doing what I do best."

"And what exactly is that, boss?" Enright said without looking up from the photographs she'd taken of the Vanir base that she was flicking through on her laptop.

"Issuing pay cuts, Alice," Halverson replied, laughing.

Bhaskar frowned and sat back, then held an object above his head.

"Hey, there was nothing written on this one's bag – don't suppose anybody knows where we found it?"

"Room number two, in the left-hand tunnel, day sixteen. I followed Alice into the room, where she found it under some rubble in the far right corner, next to a crushed buttress and some lava infiltration. I recall Alice then wondered how it had avoided melting or cooking from the heat of the nearby lava, and it was about a second later before Carl," Halverson said immediately, indicating Lamont with a nod of her head, "cracked his head on the door frame as he was bringing some more kit in because he was too busy making a joke about the lack of melting or cooking sounding a lot like the macaroni cheese Alice had made the night before."

There was stunned silence for a moment as the remaining members of Halverson's staff stared at her.

"Bloody hell!" Lamont said. "I thought you were pulling our legs, or at least exaggerating, when you said you had perfect recall."

Halverson smiled broadly.

"Go on, do another one," Bhaskar said, beaming as he pulled a different artefact out of its bag and held it out for Halverson to see. As he turned enthusiastically in his seat, his elbow swept across the top of the bench and nudged a tray holding many of the smaller items they had collected.

"Watch it!" Halverson cried fervently, surging forward to stop the tiny, precious, neatly arranged artefacts crashing to the floor, terrified of the damage to the pieces and the setback to their work.

* * *

"_You bitch."_

_With an incredulous expression on her face, Brigit turned away from giggling with her friends to face her sister, brushing a wisp of blonde hair over her ear._

"_What did you call me?!" Brigit said in mock shock, the edges of her mouth starting to curl into a sneer._

"_I called you a bitch, but now I remember who I'm talking to, I feel the need to clarify – you heartless, self-absorbed, evil little bitch," Elise snarled. The beginnings of the sneer disappeared from Brigit's face, replaced by a cold, quiet rage._

"_Get lost Elise, before you say something you regret," Brigit said angrily, turning back to her friends. Elise grabbed Brigit's shoulder and spun her around to face her again, then pushed her up against the wall of the house. Brigit's friends backed off and started to scatter – this wasn't something they wanted to get involved in._

"_I won't regret saying any of this, because I've had it with you. Maybe Mum and Dad don't want to face up to it or can't decide how to confront their spiteful, out-of-control daughter and Tomas is just too kind to say anything, so I'll say it, and you will listen. Just because you're going to fail at everything like you did with your GCSEs doesn't give you the right to take it out on people who actually do well, you nasty, vindictive little cow," Elise said, her voice low and filled with anger. "If you'd bothered putting any damn effort into your schoolwork, maybe you would have got something higher than a D in any subject, but no, you've got friends to talk to and boyfriends to manipulate. Priorities, right? All that smoking and drinking you've been doing, you must feel so grown up."_

_Brigit's lips stayed firmly shut, but her nostrils were flaring and her eyes were beginning to glisten._

"_I'm done with you. Don't talk to me, don't come to me asking for money, or to cover for you with Mum and Dad, and if I find out you've done anything to upset Tomas again, you'd better run," Elise said. "How evil you must be to think what you did is funny."_

"_I didn't do anything! Maybe if Tomas hadn't been so excited –"_

"_HE'S THIRTEEN, TODAY! He's been getting solid A's since he started secondary school, and I saw the smile on your face when you did it, Brigit. Don't you bloody dare try to convince me you 'accidentally' knocked his birthday cake and presents off the table. You might have convinced Mum and Dad, but I know you too well. Just because I made that cake for him, just because for today he's the centre of attention and just because he's getting superb grades where you failed miserably, you feel the need to wreck everything? You make me sick. Grow up, Brigit, and stop blaming the rest of the world for your failures, you hateful –"_

_Brigit's hand lashed out, the fingers and their long nails curling into claws at the last moment._

* * *

Halverson stood stock still, staring at the scattered items and fragments of Vanir technology, now lying still on the floor. Bhaskar and Enright had already rushed over to pick them all up, both of them cursing angrily, and Halverson belatedly realised she had been rooted to the spot with her hand outstretched for several seconds. She could still feel the hot sting where Brigit had raked her cheek with her nails, but when Halverson put her hand to her face, she couldn't feel the blood or lines of ragged skin she knew were there.

"Hey, Doctor Halverson, are you okay?" Lamont said, deeply concerned. "You back with us now, because we were getting a bit worried. You've just been… standing there muttering to yourself, like one half of a conversation. Are you absolutely sure you're alright?"

"I…" Halverson began, realising her vision had become blurry and her face was now hot and wet, both due to tears of pain and sorrow. "I think I need to get to the infirmary."

* * *

Designed as it was for addressing large numbers of people in one fell swoop, the recently completed Briefing Room B was substantially bigger than the original chamber situated between Webber's office and the Gatehouse. Major Hamilton leaned against the podium situated off to one side, gazing at the large screen that filled nearly one whole wall and towards which the rows of chairs in the room faced, of which two dozen were currently occupied. Next to him Taylor sat quietly, occasionally making notes on the notepad on his lap – he was only present as an observer and adviser if necessary since Ham was running this particular portion of the training schedule and the associated briefing. With Moffatt back, Taylor had handed the reins to Hamilton in anticipation of a return to offworld missions, meaning that 1LR would not directly be taking part.

"Okay then," Hamilton said, addressing the room and tapping a key on his laptop to start the presentation. "In the last four months, we've had five engagements with the Fenrir, but all of those were short-lived, low-level skirmishes during the course of standard exploration missions. None of them resulted in anything more than light casualties and no fatalities – but unfortunately that's for either side, so while we're getting a lot better at surviving encounters with the mutts, we're also not doing any useful damage to them."

It wasn't news to any of them, but Taylor noted that it still had an effect on the four assembled teams. Murmurs and hushed conversations started up through the room as the state of the Fenrir conflict was laid bare and the lack of progress was spelled out.

"While we will of course continue to carry out reconnaissance missions to worlds around the Prison as usual, we're also going to continue to step up our schedule of training exercises to keep you sharp," Hamilton continued after letting the chatter continue for a few seconds. "Right now, Brigadier Webber, Major Taylor here and I are in the process of arranging war games with Stargate Command and through them, hopefully, the Galarans and the Free Jaffa Nation. So, 5LR, as our newest team you don't get the cushy assignments just yet. I seem to remember you've got a bio/geo survey mission which is scheduled for, uh –"

"Tuesday the twenty-third starting at oh-eight-one-five hours to P5V-S3G," Taylor said idly. Hamilton finished checking the papers on his clipboard, nodded to himself and then shot Taylor a bemused look. "What? It was on the roster, wasn't it?"

"…right. Anyway, with that exception, for most of you your next trip offworld will be to the Alpha Site for a one-day lecture from Colonel Pierce about the results of a study on how the Stargate affects logistics, and as a consequence some new procedures the IOA want to implement at the SGC, here and at all other active offworld bases," Hamilton said. The room erupted into groans, murmured complaints and a few private jokes. "Hey! I can always reschedule it and send every last one of you to P3G-T65 for another round of High Gravity Acclimation and Combat Practice instead, right? You'd all prefer a nice twenty kilometre yomp across a two gee world, is that it?"

"Two point two seven three," Taylor mumbled, a wicked grin spreading across his face as he studied the reactions of the four teams. Hamilton definitely had a mean streak.

"Sorry?" Hamilton said quietly, facing Taylor with a confused expression.

"It's two point two seven three gee, not two. It was all in General Turnbull's report," Taylor explained, shrugging. Hamilton shook his head, smiling, and turned back to the audience.

"So, you have a choice – a four hour lecture on improving the speed and effectiveness of moving large loads or crowds through a Stargate while you're all sat in an air-conditioned room, or a march in high gravity hell wearing full kit followed by four hours of practicing how to factor in local gravity when calculating drop on your rifle…"

* * *

_It always seemed to be the same – a flurry of intense activity as the pair of them jumped off the Blackhawk and sprinted through the dust cloud raised by the helicopter's downwash, then pounding across sand and up craggy outcroppings in the failing light for miles, moving ever onwards towards their target. Once they were in range, they quickly scouted around until they found a concealed spot behind a flat boulder and more or less under a rocky overhang that provided camouflage, cover and shade but afforded them superb visibility. The rocks around them would help cover their inevitable rapid retreat and soak up any fire directed against them. With their vantage point selected, they established a tiny, crude and very cramped observation post, set up their equipment and then… nothing. Seemingly endless activity followed by seemingly endless watching and waiting, it always seemed to be the same._

"_I'm telling you, we need to get closer," hissed Scott in a weak Georgia accent, adjusting his spotter scope. "Every bit of gear, knowledge, experience and instinct I have is telling me that in these conditions, you couldn't hit a stationary barn door at fourteen hundred yards, and we only get one shot at this – probably literally, as it happens."_

_It was close to a day after they'd been inserted into the White Mountains in eastern Afghanistan. The Battle of Tora Bora had started two days before that, a mass of airstrikes and ground ops by elite and special forces – and several sniper teams working in quiet, surgical support of the op, tasked with eliminating targets of opportunity, sowing confusion and panic and removing vital links in the Taliban command and supply chains. By now, Operation Enduring Freedom was a little over two months old; the twin towers destroyed a further month before the coalition op had been launched._

"_Maybe," Taylor said, lying prone on a mat on top of the boulder, using his knife to idly kill and flick away a small yellow scorpion looking to use their vantage point to stay insulated against the cold night. "But if we get any closer, we run a substantially higher risk of being discovered by their patrols and we put some of the steepest and most unforgiving terrain yet between us and the extraction point. Somehow scrambling up a mountainside while under fire doesn't sound like fun, and being captured or killed would completely spoil my plans for leave. I intend to complete this mission and many more after it."_

_The Accuracy International L115A1 sniper rifle, a weapon he had come to know intimately and ultimately prefer over the L96A1 he'd become used to, was set up on its bipod in front of Taylor while Scott's spotter scope, laptop and M4 carbine sat to its right. The sun was just starting to crawl below the horizon, but far below and on the other side of the nearly inaccessible valley, the Taliban insurgents were still active. They sauntered about in loose patrols, their frequently Soviet-surplus Kalashnikovs slung over or rested on their shoulders, or else hanging in limp hands. Their confidence wasn't completely unfounded – in this particular area, deep into some of the most treacherous and impassable mountains in Afghanistan, they almost didn't need to fear attack as the difficult terrain coupled with their dispersed and well hidden cave hideouts made air strikes increasingly ineffective. A large assault by conventional ground forces was rendered impractical by the terrain regardless of whether they inserted by air drop or over land, simply because the Taliban could quickly turn the only truly viable access point into a highly effective kill zone._

"_Fine, but for when you screw up this shot and as a result, this mission, I want it on record that I protested this location," Scott replied. Taylor nodded silently, withdrawing a small notebook and pencil from his vest and started writing._

"'_Captain Scott Baumgardner, 1__st__ SFOD-D, wishes it to be put on record that on 15__th__ December 2001 he disagreed with the choice of location selected by Captain David Taylor, 22 SAS Regiment'. Care to sign it?" Taylor said, passing the notebook to Scott, who simply shook his head. "Oh well. Fair enough."_

"_God damn it, why can't you take this seriously? I still don't know why they brought some random Brit in. My guys could do this job just fine," Scott said with a hint of resentment._

"_I don't doubt it," Taylor replied casually._

"_I've got a guy in my unit who holed one of these bastards in perfect centre of mass at seventeen hundred yards with a Barrett M82."_

"_That certainly is impressive," Taylor said, nodding appreciatively. "I know I couldn't do that."_

"_Yeah, well, all of my guys can munch fourteen hundred yards easy… but even they'd balk at trying it in these conditions," Scott continued._

"_I understand your concerns, but I know what I'm doing. This is a particularly crucial and sensitive mission and some higher-up of ours made a decision to stick you and me together. Now, the way I hear it, you're one of the best spotters going and you know this terrain very well – I won't ask how, though I'm guessing covert recce and target tagging in advance of the op itself," Taylor said. Baumgardner didn't respond._

_There was quiet between them again for a while, as daylight dimmed to dusk, the temperature dropped and the winds climbed, drawing surface dust and light sand off the tops of boulders._

"_Wait… that's him," Scott said as a new face emerged from one of the entrances to the well hidden cave, checking the grainy black and white photo he had with him against the man now gazing around at his fighters. "Damn, I was not expecting him to use that entrance."_

"_I see him," Taylor said, calmly grasping the rifle and aiming it at the Taliban commander._

"_Please listen, Taylor. There is no way you're making that shot. Not at fourteen hundred yards in dropping visibility and rising wind," Scott said._

"_Oh ye of little faith… you just worry about putting numbers into that computer of yours, and let me worry about putting rounds into that target of mine, okay?"_

"_I'm not going to win this argument, am I?" Scott said._

"_Not a chance," Taylor replied evenly. "As long as you do your job you've got my word that if I screw this up I'll take full responsibility and highlight your concerns."_

_Relenting, Scott worked quickly, noting down the numbers. Taylor was already running through ballistic calculations in his head and adjusting his scope accordingly to compensate for the considerable difference in height and the local atmospheric conditions, but the numbers on the pad that Scott passed to him improved things immeasurably. Moving swiftly and fluidly, Taylor inserted the first box magazine holding five rounds of high pressure load .338 Lapua Magnum that he had readied and placed on the mat next to the rifle._

"_Wind right to left, eight miles per hour. Expect an updraft on the slope, too. Target moving… hold quarter mil right, quarter mil up."_

_Sighting down the scope, he drew the bolt back, paused his breathing, waited for a single second and carefully squeezed the trigger._

_Less than a second and a half after the recoil slammed the weapon into Taylor's shoulder, a vast crimson stain blossomed on the commander's chest and he fell back forcefully against the large sharp stones around the cave entrance, dislodging a cascade of pebbles and sand. The high calibre round had smashed his heart – he was dead before he hit the rocks._

"_Son of a – centre hit. You got lucky…" Baumgardner exclaimed, as Taylor worked the bolt, ejecting the smoking case and loading a fresh round. Without waiting for new numbers, he re-sighted on the next closest Taliban, held his breath and squeezed again. The Afghan insurgent's shoulder nearly exploded in a shower of dark red, spinning the man as if he had been winged by an invisible car._

"_Taylor – we've got company. We've got a patrol headed our way, estimate two minutes until they're on top of us," Baumgardner said, pulling his M4 closer and starting to pack away the more crucial bits of kit. A few faintly audible syllables of angry Pashto drifted up to them. "Wind's changing any moment now, I can feel it. Hold half mil right."_

_The chatter of Kalashnikov fire began to emanate from the valley, some of the insurgents desperately spraying 7.62mm rounds across the valley – while most whined past or fell short, a number of rounds slammed into the rock close to them. Other insurgents stooped and aimed, searching for some tell-tale sign of the sniper's position. Taylor selected the fighters most likely to detect their concealed vantage point and repeated the process three more times, cursing as his final shot went off target and merely caught the Taliban gunman's thigh, staining the pale stone behind his leg claret._

_The incoming fire was becoming more intense and accurate as the insurgents tracked the repeated shots back to the source hidden among the rocks._

"_Okay, you've made your point," Baumgardner said with hints of urgency and contrition in his voice._

"_Five points as it happens," Taylor replied dryly._

"_Okay man, we've achieved the mission goal and eliminated a few targets of opportunity, but we also pissed them off. I say we quit while we're ahead and bug out now," Baumgardner said, grasping his carbine and laptop as another round slammed into the overhang above them, showering them with pale dust._

"_You might be right…" Taylor said, already swiftly stowing gear. More Taliban were emerging from the cave and opening fire, while a few charged as far as they were able up the steep valley-side, climbing frantically towards Taylor and Baumgardner. The sniper team had grabbed as much of their gear as they could and begun picking their way swiftly through the rocks without losing their footing or presenting themselves as a target, staying as low as possible and heading for the peak, hoping the twilight would work in their favour._

_Several paces behind him, Baumgardner yelped. Taylor whirled quickly, seeing crimson spreading across the collapsed Delta Force operator's fatigues._

* * *

The double doors opened forcefully and Taylor stormed into the infirmary in a highly perturbed state. Major Nelson had been sat at a desk, intensely studying a lab report and looking both concerned and puzzled, but at Taylor's angry entrance his head snapped around.

"Major? What's wrong?" he asked, more than a little taken aback and concerned by the fuming Special Forces officer marching quickly towards him.

"I've got it," Taylor hissed irately, nostrils flaring angrily. "Whatever Halverson's got, I am _damn_ well sure I've got it as well."

Nelson stood up quickly, guiding Taylor to the bed next to where Halverson slept and simultaneously gesturing for a nurse. Taylor calmed slightly, rubbing his temples and trying to control his breathing as he allowed himself to be sat on the edge of the bed and examined.

"Try to calm down. Now, Major – are you absolutely sure?" Nelson asked. As much as he tried to mask it with his calm, soothing bedside manner, Taylor picked up on an alarmed, slightly urgent tone in his voice and found it was decidedly not reassuring.

"Oh yes. As if pulling obscure and completely accurate numbers from insignificant two year old reports out of my ar… head wasn't enough, I just had a full blown flashback in the middle of Hamilton's briefing," Taylor said, unusually disturbed and anxious. Unseen by both, Halverson stirred at the minor commotion and opened her eyes, but remained curled up on the bed, gazing at Taylor and Nelson.

"Incredibly vivid? Like you were actually there again?" Nelson asked keenly.

"Oh yes! It was vivid as hell, and just so, so lifelike – and it was incredibly disorienting, if I'm honest," Taylor said, closing his eyes and forcing himself to breathe deeply and slowly. "Apparently I just glazed over and zoned out for a few seconds, then started talking to a person who wasn't there and miming holding a… acting my part in the flashback for the best part of a minute. Next thing I know I'm back in the briefing room and everybody's staring at me like I've gone insane, which right now feels like it's not that far from the truth."

Nelson was quiet and contemplative for a few seconds, absorbing the significance of Taylor's revelation, before he spoke again in a low, grave voice.

"Doctor Halverson has had a few of those now. She said she enjoyed the first few but they seem to be getting worse."

"Tell me about it! This was my first and I sure as hell didn't enjoy it," Taylor said angrily.

"What was yours about?" Nelson asked.

"Really not important," Taylor said hurriedly and irritably. "It's bad enough that it happened."

Nelson nodded to himself, biting his lower lip in concentration.

"Well, the good news is that I can rule out several possible causes. It's most likely something that you were both exposed to, and if I had to guess I'd say it was probably something in that Vanir base – if it was something requiring long term exposure, we'd almost certainly be seeing similar effects in other members of the archaeological team. Instead, it's you and Doctor Halverson – so that tells me it was something in the collapse," Nelson said thoughtfully.

"Rock dust? Elise and I breathed a tonne of that stuff in before we managed to cover our mouths. Could it be something in the ground?" Taylor asked, forcing himself to calm down and focus on something helpful.

"Very possible… frankly, I don't know yet. Now, Major, I'll need to run all the tests on you as well."

"Do whatever the hell you want short of a lobotomy, just make it stop," Taylor said forcefully. As Nelson hurriedly wrote a list of the battery of tests he was about to order, Taylor sat on the bed with his head in his hands. "There are things in here I really do not want to relive, believe me."


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

"So, their memories have been enhanced?" Webber said, gazing at the two films on the light box, each depicting a monochrome slice of a human brain.

"No sir, not exactly – their ability to recall memories has definitely been altered," Nelson said. "PET and CT scans show substantially heightened activity in the anterior cingulate cortex, thalamus and cerebellum as well as several other areas of the brain, and every single one of them is associated with memory recall. The human brain absorbs a staggering amount of information all the time and without even realising it, but for most people the bulk of this information is discarded or ignored and filed away in some hard to access corner of the mind."

Webber stood silent, mulling over the implications. After a pause of a few seconds, Nelson continued talking.

"What we're seeing with Major Taylor and Doctor Halverson is a drastic improvement in their ability to recall memories quickly, effectively and effortlessly, but not just the strong ones – they're remembering even more of the details associated with any given memory than they normally would. Ask them what they had for breakfast five days ago and not only will they answer almost straight away, they'll tell you how many rashers of bacon, whether it was well cooked, if they finished it all and probably what time they ate it down to the minute. What I've seen as a result of the testing of the last few hours is that they can do all that and sometimes they can repeat an entire conversation word for word but they nearly always need an external trigger. Most of the time they can't just remember something spontaneously, but once triggered they remember in frankly excruciating detail. When asked, Major Taylor was able to recite the first three pages of The Hunt for Red October word for word despite not having read it for over a decade. Certain stimuli – a particular word, smell, sound, image, anything – can trigger the recall of particularly strong memories, and that seems to elicit a different and much more powerful response."

"I assume you're talking of the flashbacks?" Webber asked.

"Yes sir. Also known as involuntary recurrent memory, it's basically reliving a memory that is so vivid you don't realise it isn't the present."

"So what's causing it?" Webber said. Nelson shook his head.

"Honestly sir, I don't know, but if I had to guess I'd say it was exposure to something in the Vanir base collapse."

"Such as?"

"I simply don't know at this stage… some heavy metals can cause psychosis, and long term exposure to naquadria radiation can induce schizophrenia, so maybe we've encountered a mineral not found elsewhere that has a slightly different effect on the mind. If not that, something else that was physically in the rock, like a fungal spore perhaps? Or it could be some malfunctioning piece of Vanir technology that went haywire – God alone knows what some of the energy fields or particles we've encountered since first stepping through the gate might do to a human brain. Right now only Major Taylor and Doctor Halverson are exhibiting the enhanced recall, so since blood tests don't show anything particularly abnormal other than some slightly elevated stress hormones that are understandable under the circumstances and while we'll have to wait for cultures, I'd be inclined to rule out anything biological," Nelson said.

"Why?"

"For one thing, it's only been a day since the collapse – pathogens that directly affect the brain, like say neurosyphilis, rabies or Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease frequently have weeks, months, years or even decades long incubation periods. For another, they aren't showing any symptoms associated with an infection or an immune response. So far there isn't so much as a headache or runny nose between them. If it's something physically in their systems, then whatever is causing these symptoms passed through the blood-brain barrier effortlessly," Nelson replied.

"Doctor, I want you to keep me updated no matter what happens," Webber said as a nurse walked up to Nelson with a clipboard. The Brigadier turned and strode forcefully towards the infirmary doors with a quick sidelong glance at Halverson and Taylor lying on beds next to each other, unable to sleep and unwilling to do anything that might provoke another flashback.

Nelson signed the clipboard and turned back to the light box, hoping he could find some kind of inspiration in the neuroimaging of his two newest patients.

* * *

Due to several factors, including the forced mixing of military and civilian personnel, the unconventional and slightly more relaxed approach to aspects of normal British armed forces doctrine and sheer logistical simplicity, the Garrison did not have a Sergeants Mess and an Officers Mess as would be found on a typical military base operated by the United Kingdom's armed forces. Instead catering was provided to all personnel regardless of rank from one location around the clock, and the messes ended up becoming little more than social clubs.

"So how's the science stuff going?"

Looking up from her dog-eared exercise book, Moffatt did a double take as the powerful six foot four bulk of Jarvis sat down heavily immediately opposite her.

"Don't take this the wrong way Sarge, but you do know there are food groups other than meat, right?" she said, still staring at the meal tray he'd placed on the table and wondering how the furniture was still standing.

"What? I've got chips here, they're more or less veg – plus there's fried onion on the steak and tomato in the sauce. Not seeing a problem," Jarvis said, happily sawing into the slab of cooked cow. "And I think I saw some mushrooms somewhere. Besides, I've been in the gym so I need a tonne of protein."

"Okay Sarge, you're scaring me now – why're you this happy?" Moffatt said with faux suspicion.

"I just said, I was in the gym. Workouts always make me feel good. And hungry," Jarvis replied defensively.

"And…?" Moffatt prompted with a sly smile.

"And I just watched Rovers thrash Bolton three nil," Jarvis beamed, still chewing. "Match was two weeks ago, but we only got the recording this morning. Now, enough stalling – I asked first and I outrank you. So talk, science girl."

Moffatt sighed, her own meal long since abandoned. The mess needed to work on making their pasta dishes more edible and substantially less rubbery.

"I needed to get out of that lab. Nelson won't clear me for offworld duty, at least not yet, and he won't allow me to serve in a purely medical capacity either so I'm stuck doing research for the foreseeable future," she said.

"And this is bad because…?" Jarvis asked, shrugging and spearing chips and mushrooms with his fork.

"Because I don't think he's ever going to clear me for the mission roster again, and even if he does… well, how would you feel if somebody told you that you couldn't go through the Stargate again, but you could watch others do it?" she asked.

Jarvis didn't answer, instead continuing to eat for long enough that Moffatt decided he'd assumed it had been a rhetorical question.

"Gutted," he said eventually. "I see your point. So why'd you take up biology anyway if –"

There was a crash from the other side of the mess followed by a scream and raised voices with a mix of consternation and annoyance. Jarvis and Moffatt turned quickly to see what had happened. In the queue in the serving area there was a gap, people on either side looking down at the floor with surprise, concern and disgust while on the other side of the counter a shocked catering worker stood still holding a ladle, all while the screaming continued.

Moffatt was already up and running as Jarvis dropped his utensils and pushed himself to his feet.

In the gap in the queue Private Langer writhed on the floor while screaming loudly and as if in agony, all the time frantically slapping his hand and arm as he kicked wildly. The floor was smeared red where Langer was thrashing in pain, a meal tray and the remains of a shattered bowl kicked to one side.

"What happened?" Jarvis barked as Moffatt knelt next to Langer.

"I… I accidentally splashed him with the tomato soup when I filled his bowl. I didn't think it was that hot!" the catering worker said. Moffatt's eyes widened and she whipped her head around to look at Jarvis.

"I think I know what this is. Sarge, we've got to get him to the infirmary quickly!"

* * *

By the following morning, Nelson had not had any epiphanies. The few hours of sleep he had grabbed had brought dreams, all vivid and most unwelcome, but no insights or eureka moments regarding the mysterious condition afflicting Taylor, Halverson and now Langer.

"Any luck yet sir?" Moffatt said, placing a mug of very strong coffee in front of Nelson.

"None yet, and whatever's causing it only seems to be making the condition worse – and although he presented symptoms second, Major Taylor is deteriorating faster. With all of them, memories are being triggered more and more easily, the frequency of the flashback events only climbs, while the truly lucid intervals get progressively shorter and shorter, and understandably they are all getting increasingly distressed. I'm seeing behaviour that might suggest that sometimes memory is overlapping or even overriding reality. I just wish I could understand what's causing this condition because then I might have a shot at actually treating it, but every test I've tried so far has come back negative so at the moment I'm restricted to palliative care only. I've got them all on diazepam to try and combat the anxiety and keep them mildly sedated to try and block conscious recall, but it's not working as well as I'd hoped – I have to keep increasing the dose."

Moffatt waited a moment.

"So it's definitely the same thing in all three of them?" she asked.

"If it isn't, it's one hell of a damned coincidence, and I generally don't believe in coincidence when it comes to medicine. Did you know Langer was involved in an incident several years back where his arm was accidentally doused in burning fuel?" Nelson said. "He was damned lucky to get away with only second degree burns and narrowly avoided needing skin grafts."

"So the splashed soup, the sensation of burning liquid on his arm, triggered the flashback," Moffatt said, to which Nelson nodded sombrely. A nurse walked up to him hurriedly.

"Sir… we've just received reports that in the last ten minutes Doctor McAlmont has had an episode very similar to those experienced by Doctor Halverson, Major Taylor and Private Langer," she said.

"Are you sure?" Nelson asked.

"Yes sir. A medical team was despatched to the research wing a few minutes ago because according to four eyewitnesses, Doctor McAlmont suddenly began acting erratically, and the description of his episode matches what Major Taylor and Doctor Halverson experienced – except he lost consciousness, like Langer. The medical team's bringing him in now," the nurse said.

Nelson thought for a moment, turning to Moffatt.

"McAlmont I could explain – he was first to go in looking for Taylor and Halverson after the collapse, so it makes sense he would have breathed in the next highest amount of dust after them, but Langer… according to the team's report he helped with the bags and then was sat in the driver's seat of one of the Land Rovers for pretty much the whole time. Bhaskar, Enright and Lamont were on the scene shortly after McAlmont, but Langer reported that he was a while behind everybody else and stopped once he saw Taylor and Halverson were okay. He didn't even approach the dig site so he'd have been the least likely to breathe in the dust of all of them," he murmured, half-talking to Moffatt and half thinking aloud. He turned to the nurse who had alerted him to McAlmont's condition. "I want you to get Bhaskar, Enright and Lamont in here straight away."

The nurse nodded and hurried away.

"Something up?" Taylor said softly, lying on his bed with his eyes wide open. To Moffatt he looked tired, stressed, depressed and very distracted, and she couldn't remember seeing him so lacking in energy, so defeated before now. His skin glistened with perspiration and the monitor next to him displayed a higher resting heart rate than would be normal for a man of his age, build and fitness.

"I thought I told you to get some sleep, Major," Nelson admonished as he walked over, hands in pockets. Moffatt trailed after him and stood at the base of Taylor's bed.

"With the things I'm seeing when I close my eyes, no thanks," Taylor replied. "Hell, the things I'm seeing with my eyes open are bad enough…"

"Steady on sir, I haven't put on that much weight," Moffatt said. Taylor chuckled for a few seconds before screwing his eyes shut and massaging his temples.

"I know you're supposed to run into problems with your memory as you get older, but I didn't realise this is what they meant," Taylor muttered. Moffatt smiled sadly.

"Well, to answer your earlier question, as a matter of fact something is up. Private Langer had an episode like the one you and Doctor Halverson experienced, only quite a bit worse by the sounds of it since he actually passed out, and we've just heard that Doctor McAlmont has had one as well," Nelson said.

"Langer? The driver?" Taylor asked quietly. Nelson barely seemed to hear, lost in thought as though something was troubling him.

"This doesn't fit. First Doctor Halverson was affected, then you, then McAlmont. That all makes sense – but Langer? If it was the rock dust, I'd expect to see a direct correlation between the amount of dust breathed in and the onset of the first recall event, and probably even the severity of the event, but he never got closer than ten metres and yet he's the third person and the first to lose consciousness as a result of one of these… episodes? It doesn't make sense."

"So you don't now know what's causing these memory attacks?" Taylor asked.

"No, but at least we've narrowed the list of possible causes. I'd need to know details of exactly what… happened," Nelson said, trailing off as something seemed to occur to him. "You know, I think I know exactly who to ask!"

Turning to Halverson, who'd dropped back into a light, fitful sleep again, Nelson gently shook her shoulder. She woke up quickly and without much disorientation.

"Doctor, I need to ask you – were you exposed to anything unusual in the Vanir cave, perhaps strange technology, unknown chemicals or alien life forms? Anything along those lines Doctor?" Nelson asked. Halverson barely needed a second to come up with an answer.

"Oh!" Halverson exclaimed, surprised by the clarity of the images in her head. For several seconds she closed her eyes and shook her head as if trying hard to focus before answering. "Now that you mention it, yes, I think we were – there were small silver canisters in the lab, standing on the counter. Wow, thanks for that - until you asked I hadn't thought of them at all, but now I'm practically remembering the whole thing like it's in high definition and surround sound."

"What are you remembering, Doctor?" Nelson pressed.

"I'm remembering that when the roof collapsed and Dave started to throw me towards the doorway I saw several of the canisters get crushed by the falling ceiling. They must have been pressurised I suppose because when that happened they sprayed a fluid, a clear fluid right across the room!"

"So, those canisters released something into the air when they got flattened, or they spattered something onto your skin," Nelson said.

"Yes, that sounds right. It's weird, I didn't realise it before because, well…"

"You had slightly more important things on your mind at the time, and since then there has been nothing to trigger the recall of that particular memory, or at least trigger it so powerfully," Nelson finished, nodding as Doctor Stafford, one of the other senior members of the medical staff walked over to him, waiting patiently for a break in the conversation. "Thank you Doctor Halverson, you can go back to sleep again. Sorry to wake you. Yes?"

"Major Nelson… we've just received three more reports of conspicuously accurate recall, one with an associated flashback," Stafford said, following Nelson as he walked away from Taylor and Halverson's beds.

"Are the three Bhaskar, Enright and Lamont?" Nelson asked.

"That's just it – only Enright's showing anything close to enhanced recall, but as yet no reported flashback. And the other two… they're not even on the dig team. They have no relation to the dig team, they've never even been out to the dig site. One's a mechanic working in the motor transport platoon in Section W, the other one is on Brigadier Webber's administrative staff," Stafford replied.

"Despatch medical teams and bring them back here," Nelson said before wandering back over to Moffatt. "It doesn't fit the pattern. This isn't exposure to rock dust because most of these people simply haven't been exposed to that dust, and it's almost certainly not Vanir technology or some errant energy field because only some of the afflicted people have been near the Vanir ruins. It's spreading to unconnected people – now, Doctor Halverson just mentioned being splashed by something in the laboratory, something that could conceivably have been passed to Taylor, McAlmont and maybe Langer, and from them others, but even if this was some kind of toxin or chemical being dispersed by physical contact it's spreading too easily. That means this is… oh no," he murmured, closing his eyes as the realisation hit home.

"Yes sir, I'm afraid that's exactly what it looks like," Moffatt said apologetically.

"I disregarded the possibility of it being an infection because there were no signs of significant immune activity in any of the affected people and there didn't appear to be any foreign organisms in the blood tests we did, and if this is in fact a pathogen that affects the brain, there should have been some pretty intense signs – encephalitis, headaches, high fever and worse," Nelson said, confused and deep in thought. Moffatt cleared her throat pointedly.

"With respect sir, you're only thinking along the lines of terrestrial diseases. We're living on an alien planet, and almost certainly dealing with an alien pathogen – there is absolutely no telling what kind of effect that would have on human physiology," she said. "Human immune systems might not even recognise an alien microorganism for what it was until it was too late."

Nelson stared at her intently for a moment, and Moffatt immediately went over what she had said and how she had said it in case she had unwittingly overstepped a line – not all officers were as relaxed as Taylor about protocol and rank relations. He turned and walked hurriedly to his office, and Moffatt moved quickly after him in case she needed to explain or apologise. Once inside, Nelson closed the door and turned.

"You're right. Of course, you're absolutely right. I would say I don't know how I overlooked it, but I know precisely how – I'm a surgeon at heart, Corporal. I was headhunted for this role because I'm an expert in dealing with physical injury and effectively coordinating trauma response, and understandably the SWRS anticipated that the Garrison's greatest medical need would be treatment of fléchette wounds, Fenrir mauling, burns from energy weapons and such. I've treated enough gunshot and shrapnel wounds that it made perfect sense, but this thing makes me feel out of my depth. Damn it, if it had to happen why couldn't it have been a conventional disease, like a flu outbreak?"

Moffatt waited for a few seconds. As she opened her mouth to say something, the door opened and Stafford leaned into the office. Nelson turned to look at her expectantly.

"Major Nelson? I thought you'd want to know as soon as possible that another two cases have just been reported – one in the catering department and the other in one of the physical sciences laboratories. I've taken the liberty of despatching teams to bring them in as well," she said. Nelson nodded acknowledgement and appreciation and Stafford disappeared again. Moffatt paused and cleared her throat before talking.

"Sir… what are our next steps? It's sounding a lot more like an organism and it also sounds like it's jumped to new hosts already… "

Nelson stood silent, and Moffatt hoped he had actually heard her query. A few seconds later he turned, reached across his desk and plucked the telephone handset from its cradle.

* * *

"Webber."

"Sir, I think I was wrong. Taylor and Halverson were simply the first – Private Langer lost consciousness as a result of a flashback, followed by Doctor McAlmont, and since then we've had five more cases… except four of them were entirely unconnected with the dig site. Of all the patients, the one with the most severe reaction was barely exposed to the rock dust, so while I have no hard evidence yet I can only assume we're dealing with an infectious agent," Major Nelson said over the phone line. "Furthermore, going by the time scale and the separation between the patients that have presented symptoms I suspect it is very easily transmitted, possibly even airborne. I should also tell you that given the severity and nature of the symptoms experienced by Major Taylor, Doctor Halverson and most notably Private Langer I don't believe we can afford to let it get off this base. It may not be lethal, at least as far as we know, but it is most definitely incapacitating."

"Understood major, I'll make the necessary arrangements," Webber said. Nelson's words ricocheted around his mind and the grim possibilities started to unfurl as he slowly comprehended the dangers of the microbe reaching beyond Lyngvi. He stood up from his desk and moved in quick, long strides, yanking his office door open and jogging down the corridor to the control room.

"Sergeant Gibson, close the Iris and seal it with a level two lock-out, then dial Stargate Command immediately," he barked as he entered, passing the map table that was his habitual haunt and moving towards the row of terminals that looked out into the converted cave. Seconds passed before he realised that nothing was happening. Along with the other personnel in the room, he looked over to where Gibson sat at her terminal, staring out into the Gatehouse with glazed eyes. Her lips were moving slowly but she wasn't making a sound.

"Sergeant, I gave you an order!" Webber said.

"I… sorry, sir. I don't know what just happened," Gibson replied after a few seconds, quickly composing herself and resuming her usual cool, professional attitude.

"I do, sergeant. I'll say it once more – close the Iris, seal it with a level two lock-out and dial Stargate Command immediately," Webber replied evenly. "Once you're done here, I want you to report to the infirmary."

With only a momentary flicker of hesitation as the import of Webber's orders hit her, Gibson's fingers flew over the keyboard. As the trinium alloy blades extended from their concealed housing and pushed together, a low rumble sped through the control room as the Stargate spun to life.

"Iris closed, and a level two seal is now in place – the system confirms that manual controls have been isolated and the Iris cannot now be disengaged except with authorisation codes from two ranking officers on-site," she reported with cool efficiency.

"Put me on the PA system, base-wide," Webber said. Gibson flicked a switch and nodded at him.

"This is Brigadier Webber to all personnel, may I have your attention please – this is an urgent announcement. I have just been informed that there is a very high probability that we have a highly infectious agent of unknown origin and debilitating effect on base, and that all personnel are likely to have been exposed. As a precaution I am declaring total quarantine protocol active as of…" he checked the display on the console, "zero eight seventeen Zulu. Effective immediately all gate travel is hereby suspended and Lyngvi Garrison is off-limits to all inbound travellers until further notice. I repeat, Lyngvi Garrison is off-limits to all travellers until further notice – we are now under quarantine. More information will follow. That is all."

Moments after he finished, the final chevron thudded into place and illuminated. With a howl the wormhole splashed unseen against the barrier, and at a nod from Webber, Gibson worked the communications panel quickly to establish radio contact through the gate.

"IDC transmitted, handshake complete," she said, turning and nodding to the Brigadier. He leaned forward, grasping the stalk microphone and then paused, hand hovering over the transmit button at its base.

"I hate repeating myself," he muttered before stabbing a finger into the button. "Stargate Command, this is Brigadier Webber of Lyngvi Garrison…"

* * *

The mood had changed since Webber's base-wide announcement, and while everybody continued to go about their duties with the same professionalism and determination, they were also more subdued and sombre at the idea of having already been exposed to the mysterious organism afflicting Taylor, Halverson, Langer and McAlmont, and shortly afterwards another dozen cases had come forward upon realising that their recall had been recently enhanced. Gibson's latest update had informed the base that quarantining the already infected to try and contain the spread to those who weren't yet demonstrating the effects of the pathogen was futile – those personnel presenting symptoms came from every area and department of the base, with no significant connection to the first few cases. Exposure was to be considered total.

Jarvis digested the words and their implications as he strolled through the rocky corridors of the Garrison towards the infirmary. Nelson wanted to take samples from those not yet displaying any symptoms and compare them to those who were in the hopes of finding out what factor determined who fell ill first. He wasn't looking forward to having needles stuck into him and fluids taken out, but if it was of any use to his teammates and the others suffering from the recall bug, it was worth doing.

He rounded the corner and slowed to a halt as he stared at the scene in front of him. A soldier walked swiftly but not urgently down the corridor towards him cradling a fire extinguisher in both arms, and Jarvis recognised him immediately.

"Langer? What the hell are you doing out of the infirmary?" he asked incredulously as the soldier obliviously walked past him. The other man didn't even seem to acknowledge his presence.

"Langer!" Jarvis yelled, backtracking to keep up with the private.

"Can't stop now Pete, got to… got to get this cylinder head to Corporal Fielding pronto. You know what he's like," Langer said, looking slightly past Jarvis, his voice cracking as if his mouth was dry. The soldier's skin was flushed and clammy, his pupils dilated and his bloodshot eyes surrounded by dark circles. Jarvis noticed that the private's hands trembled slightly as they clutched the fire extinguisher.

"How about we get you back to the infirmary, yeah?" Jarvis said, gently but firmly trying to guide Langer back to the safety and care of the Garrison's medical facility. Langer resisted, trying to continue forwards as Jarvis pushed against his shoulders. Langer clearly possessed a completely average build while Jarvis knew very well that with his size, musculature and predilection for physical training he was easily the strongest person on the base, and yet he was surprised at just how much force the ill soldier exerted in merely trying to push past him.

"Pete! Why're you… got to get the, the cylinder head to…" Langer said, visibly confused and distracted, suddenly trying to irately barge past Jarvis and very nearly succeeding.

Just as Jarvis was about to move to stand in front of the man and bodily push him back to the infirmary, he saw Major Nelson and a nurse jog around the corner.

"Hold him still sergeant," the doctor said as he pulled the cap off a syringe containing clear fluid. Jarvis gripped Langer's shoulders firmly despite the resistance as the doctor quickly jabbed the needle into the soldier's buttock and slowly pushed the plunger down. Langer barely seemed to notice except for a mild flicker of discomfort until suddenly he wasn't fighting against Jarvis as much. Even as he continued to try and move forwards, his eyelids drooped and he began to sag. While Nelson and nurse grabbed Langer as he sank to the floor, Jarvis caught the hefty fire extinguisher as it rolled out of the now comatose soldier's arms.

Once Nelson was satisfied Langer was both completely unconscious and in no immediate medical danger, Jarvis set the extinguisher down to help lift the soldier up and carry him back to the infirmary.

"What was that, sir?" he asked Nelson as they wandered back to the infirmary, Langer's limp form in Jarvis' arms.

"I don't know sergeant, I really don't know," Nelson said, massaging his temples. "He was on his bed murmuring and writhing like he was having a bad dream, just like all the others, I turned my back to check on Doctor McAlmont and the next thing I know we're missing a carbon dioxide extinguisher and the patient with the most advanced symptoms. I don't even know how he was walking so easily because he's got a bloodstream full of diazepam, it's like he's just shrugging it off now – that was a heavy barbiturate I just shot into him, more than should be needed to drop a healthy grown man."

"Bloody hell," Jarvis murmured.

"No kidding. I've got over a dozen patients now and more with every passing hour – and on top of that I've still got no idea what's causing it all. What did you observe with Langer?"

"Dunno. He didn't recognise me, and when eventually he reacted to me he called me Pete and mentioned a Corporal Fielding, kept calling the extinguisher a cylinder head and saying he had to deliver it. I tried to stop him but he just pushed against me, dead strong like, and asked what I was doing. Creepy as hell… was it another flashback?" Jarvis said.

"No, doesn't quite sound like it," Nelson said as he and the nurse held the infirmary doors open for Jarvis to carry Langer through effortlessly. "By the sounds of it this is a new symptom. He wasn't just reliving a memory because he seemed to have no problem navigating the corridors or recognising objects he could pick up, and he reacted to you – albeit sluggishly and incorrectly – so he was incorporating the present into whatever he was experiencing. In his personnel file there is a record of an RPG attack on a forward operating base in Helmand Province he was stationed at in which a Corporal Lee Fielding, part of his motor transport platoon, was killed, and a separate incident three months later when Langer and a Private Peter Wendell were among five people in a Land Rover that was hit by an IED… Wendell didn't make it."

"Damn."

"Indeed. Private Langer has had rather a traumatic career in the Army so far," Nelson said.

Jarvis lay Langer on the empty bed indicated by Nelson.

"He looks proper ill," Jarvis said.

"So do a lot of them now. Headaches are most common, raised temperature, sore necks, sweating… the symptoms took time to appear, but they're there. In a way, it's good," Nelson said.

"With all due respect sir, how the hell is that a good thing?"

"It's good because it means their bodies are fighting the infection. I don't know what good that'll do, if any, but it's something. At this point all I can do is treat the symptoms and hope we get a breakthrough soon."


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

"I appreciate that you're extremely busy Brigadier, I really do, but I still have to compose the first of my regular situational reports for the IOA and have it ready to transmit for the next time you dial Stargate Command," Fliss said, sitting with her legs crossed in the seat on the opposite side of Webber's desk, a pad of ruled paper in a leather binder on her lap and a fountain pen poised to write. Webber grunted irritably and sighed, squeezing his eyes shut and massaging his head as he composed himself before replying.

"Ms Armstrong-Forbes, in case it has escaped your attention this base is in a state of emergency and is currently locked down under quarantine protocol due to what appears to be an alien contagion. As of Major Nelson's last report, nearly half of the base's personnel are showing evidence of the condition and he suspects every single person present, and that includes you and me, has been exposed and is now infected. We won't be dialling the SGC, we have to wait for them to dial us to minimise the risk of the contagion getting through the Stargate," Webber said very pointedly, hunched over his paperwork instead of working on it as was typical.

"I understand what you're saying, but given the severity of the situation, doesn't that make it more important that we make as many reports as possible in as much detail as possible while we can? The IOA can mobilise significant assets and funding to assist us if needed, even authorise sending a ship, but they will want as much information as possible to work with. Brigadier," Fliss said, her tone changing from business to soft, "I understand that nobody is happy about having me or any IOA representative on this base, and I can understand why, I really can, but I'm sure you remember that my being here is a mandatory part of the agreement that keeps this facility active and funded?"

"You know, I just don't recall," Webber said with a slight smirk.

"Brigadier, please… I'm only trying to do my job. Are you saying you won't help?" Fliss said. Webber was momentarily taken aback when he realised the tone of her response and her body language was more disappointed and even offended than the steely, near-threatening response he had expected from an IOA bureaucrat. Despite the professional, self-assured demeanour she projected he immediately realised that she was not a seasoned member of the International Oversight Advisory, and he suddenly began to wonder if the Garrison had been assigned an inexperienced junior member of the organisation that more or less financed, regulated, approved and to some extent controlled all of Earth's offworld activity. He made a mental note to check into her background a little more deeply than the official biography he had been sent.

"I'm saying… make it quick," Webber replied, surprised at himself for relenting and quickly justifying it on the grounds that it would be more likely to accelerate the meeting to its natural end and that he wouldn't be responsible for negatively impacting the career of somebody who was only trying to do her job to the best of her ability. He needed a few minutes break from reading and signing paperwork. Though the workload had slackened considerably following the Fido Crisis and the arrival of a proper administrative staff, there was still a lot of form-filling and report-writing to do to appease the Ministry of Defence, the Department of Defense and the International Oversight Advisory.

Fliss beamed as Webber unexpectedly relented.

"Thank you, Brigadier. It's appreciated," she said. "The next time the Stargate is open I will need to send a message-"

* * *

_Now that the long night had passed their goal seemed, to him at least, fairly unremarkable to behold, little more than a hamlet of low white buildings with terracotta red roofs all positioned close to the cold waters of the Atlantic Ocean, but it had been their target nonetheless. Surrounded on all sides by treeless, windswept terrain, Webber had kept his head low and his eyes open. The attack had begun at half two in the morning with HMS Arrow shelling the enemy position for an hour and a half as soldiers of the Parachute Regiment moved ever closer._

_Even though the fighting was over and he had been awake for a very long time, Webber couldn't get the sights and sounds out of his head. For hours the chatter of both sides exchanging small arms fire had filled his ears, and it continued to long after the fighting had ceased, and he had seen things that his extensive training at Catterick and Sandhurst just couldn't properly prepare him for. As every advance towards the small town eventually stalled due to heavy enemy fire, 2 PARA had taken casualties. Some of them had been close to Webber._

"_This was your first time in combat, wasn't it Lieutenant?"_

"_Yes sir," Webber responded._

"_For somebody just barely out of Sandhurst, you did well." Major Keeble nodded affably. 2 PARA's second in command looked drawn and pale, the struggle of the last few hours obviously taking its toll._

"_Thank you, sir," Webber said with a shaky voice. _

"_Charles said you did the Company proud. Not many lads would do something like that on their first time out." _

_Webber just nodded slackly. He couldn't even quite believe he did it. _

_Acrid smoke wafted over the hill, sticking in his craw. He coughed slightly, and Keeble misunderstood this as a sign he disapproved of using the other Major's Christian name._

"_Major Farrar-Hockley, I should say. As I said, he thinks you did A Company proud, despite it all."_

"_Thank you sir," Webber said, not wanting to correct the Major. "Just wish I could have been quicker."_

"_You did your very best. Chris Dent wasn't going to survive those injuries." _

_They both fell silent for a moment. Webber shuddered slightly._

"_You knew Wood, didn't you?"_

"_Yes, sir. Captain Wood and I knew each other quite well. It was… hard, seeing him gunned down with the Colonel's unit." Webber said no more, a shadow clearly falling over his face. David Wood had helped him settle well into A Coy, especially when the new lieutenant didn't think he was going to make it amongst the hardened paratroopers. Partly because of exhaustion, Webber slumped visibly._

_The Major stared out at the small airfield next to the town of Goose Green proper. The regrouped Argentine forces were there, bunkering down for the next British attack. Here and there the odd crack of weapons fire permeated the fragile peace. British sections were engaging enemy units retreating back to the airfield. As the Major watched Webber just stood silently next to him. His right hand held his SLR just in front of the pistol grip, and in his left he had a truly terrible mug of tea. His right hand was shaking slightly, no doubt from tiredness and adrenaline come-down. Keeble, ever observant, did his best as an officer to take his subordinate's mind off the thoughts no doubt swirling through there._

"_My watch was broken back at the gorse hedge, what time is it now?"_

_Webber started and automatically moved his hand to check, throwing tea onto the heather, his boots and his fatigues. Webber swore, but Keeble smiled slightly. The Lieutenant saw his CO's grin and started chuckling._

"_Thank you, sir."_

"_You're welcome. But really, what time is it?" the Major asked again. _

"_1640 hours, sir."_

"_Ah, good. Getting on a bit. Won't be too much longer til dusk starts drawing in. Well, tell me what you think to this; I need to take that damned township. One in six of my men are dead or wounded, I have bugger all ammunition left and the Argies are in a well-defended position. Again. How would you do it?" the Major asked. Webber thought hard for a moment. _

"_Bombard them from the Arrow. Maybe get some of that artillery to open fire now it's finally in a good position. Level the airfield. Pound them then send the lads in again. Break what's left of their morale and have at them."_

"_And what problems do you see?"_

_Again, the young Lieutenant's brow furrowed as he struggled to take in the information he had earlier read._

"_There could still be civilians down there, and any bombardment could kill them. Collateral is unacceptable here. We just lost the Colonel, he…well, the men will be disheartened. They are tired and low on supplies. Casualties are high, and we will only suffer more in another frontal attack."_

"_What solution then?" the Major kept probing, one eyebrow raised high._

"_Well, we have more forces on the way, artillery nearby. They've had the shock of being pushed back from damned fine defensive positions. They'll be as cold and tired as us. Offer them a chance to surrender under threat of bombardment and attack, sir? Try and force them to give up without any more injury?"_

_Keeble nodded, impressed. He handed Webber a note. The Lieutenant's eyes widened in surprise, then smiled as he saw his guess was just right. The note read:_

_"MILITARY OPTIONS_

_We have sent a PW to you under a white flag of truce to convey the following military options:_

_1. That you unconditionally surrender your force to us by leaving the township, forming up in a military manner, removing your helmets and laying down your weapons. You will give prior notice of this intention by returning the PW under a white flag with him briefed as to the formalities by no later than 0830 hrs local time._

_2. You refuse in the first case to surrender and take the inevitable consequences. You will give prior notice of this intention by returning the PW without his flag (although his neutrality will be respected) no later than 0830 hrs local time._

_3. In the event and in accordance with the terms and conditions of the Geneva Convention and Laws of War you will be held responsible for the fate of any civilians in Darwin and Goose Green and we in accordance with these terms do give notice of our intention to bombard Darwin and Goose Green._

_C KEEBLE_

_Commander of British Forces"_

"_I'll send it in an hour or so. Give it to some of their officers. Hopefully they'll see sense, eh?"_

"_Hopefully sir. It's a bold move," Webber said earnestly._

"_Indeed it is. But not one the Colonel would have approved of. He was a man of action, always trying to push forward even when it may not have been the best thing for it, God rest him," Keeble said sadly, and Webber remembered he was quite a religious man. He had even knelt to pray briefly after taking over when Colonel Jones was killed._

_He thought again of his friend David Wood, and the adjutant Dent. He had seen their deaths, and those of several others, at very close proximity and he knew it would be with him until the day he died._

_As if reading his mind, as any good officer does, Keeble spoke quietly. "They died leading their men, attacking the enemy and doing their duty. Fine men like that will find a place at His side. And they'll be in my prayers. Make sure they are in yours, Lieutenant, and they will be in good hands until we see them again."_

_Webber smiled wanly, not sharing Keeble's faith so strongly. "Yes sir. Thank you, sir."_

"_Very good. Right, adjutant," that made Webber start in surprise. "Go find me some acceptable prisoners to carry my ingenious note."_

"_Happily, sir." Webber, knowing they were far enough to be safe from marksmen, threw a fast, tight salute before pressing into the rapidly approaching dusk to find some flag bearers._

* * *

As Fliss watched, confused and concerned, Webber blinked furiously then looked about the room as if wondering why he was there. Realising what had just happened his typically ramrod straight posture evaporated and he slumped in his chair, closing his eyes and pinching his nose.

"Are you alright Brigadier?" Fliss asked quietly, leaning forwards.

"No," Webber replied tersely.

"Would you like me to get some help?"

"No."

"Did you just…"

"Yes."

"Oh. Oh dear. I'm sorry to hear that," Fliss said softly. Webber didn't respond immediately except to nod very slightly.

"Bugger."

"No, don't hold your breath. Don't tense any muscles, just relax… that's it. Stay perfectly still," Nelson said softly.

Lying on the bed in a near perfect foetal position with her top pulled up high enough to expose the base of her back, Halverson tried not to think about needles, and especially not the one being inserted between her L3 and L4 vertebrae. The local anaesthetic was working – there was no pain, but she could feel the pressure as the needle was pushed into her spine, and her back had felt cold from the iodine antiseptic solution applied beforehand. Even without pain, it was slightly unsettling, and the knowledge of what was being done was making her a little anxious. The possibility of experiencing another flashback while Nelson was executing the procedure was concerning enough that two orderlies stood waiting to pin her down if she started to relive and act out an episode from her past. At least the increased dose of diazepam seemed to be helping in that regard.

"Tell me again why it had to be me, because I am slightly regretting that decision right now," Halverson croaked, gazing at Taylor in his bed. Although his eyes were closed as he tried to sleep with the assistance of now not-so-mild sedation, he continued writhing and mumbling. Periodically a leg or arm would flash out or he would grit his teeth. Halverson decided to tell herself he was just having a strong disagreement with somebody from his memories.

"So far our blood tests and blood films haven't shown any foreign bodies, and since this is a neurological condition I thought a lumbar puncture would be our best bet to actually find the organism we now believe is responsible for your condition. If this doesn't work, we're down to more invasive procedures such as biopsies. As for why I picked you, it's simple. Although you were the first to present any symptoms, Major Taylor's condition seems to be… advancing substantially faster than yours," Nelson said.

"'Advancing', I like it. Huh… you can say 'deteriorating', you know," Halverson replied quietly. Her skin was clammy, her mouth felt dry, her head was throbbing and nauseous and she could feel her heart beating rapidly. All told, she just wanted to sleep it off.

"I'm concerned that he wouldn't be able to stay still long enough for me to safely carry out the procedure – there seemed to be a completely unacceptable risk of injury."

"Injury as in you could damage his spinal cord?!" Halverson asked.

"Well, yes, but also as in the Major is a very physically powerful individual with extensive close quarters combat training and experience. Even with the dosage of diazepam I've put him on, I'm not keen on triggering any of those memories," Nelson said apologetically as he worked. "By comparison, and I hope you won't take this the wrong way, you would be substantially easier to restrain if needed – and you're in a much better state of mind, which is simultaneously comforting and worrying."

"You done yet?" Halverson asked, slightly nervously.

"Just a moment longer…" Nelson said as the cerebrospinal fluid dripped into the last sterile vial. The top went on and was handed along with the others to a waiting technician. "Instruct the laboratory techs to run everything they can on those – especially films and viral, bacterial and fungal cultures, whatever they can think of."

As he withdrew the needle, safely discarded it and placed a small dressing on the site, Nelson turned back to Halverson. "Thank you Doctor, that's much appreciated. The results from the tests may take up to two days, but with any luck if whatever this thing is does prove to be an organism or virus – which is looking almost certain now – then going by the speed with which it has infected you and everybody else we should get any successful cultures back sooner rather than later. The sooner we get results, the sooner I can work out how to combat it."

"Good, because if the headache and sweating weren't already giving it away I'm really not enjoying this anymore," Halverson said unhappily. "It was useful and even fun at first, but now… it's distracting, and unpleasant. Anything could set another flashback off and I'm remembering things that I forgot for a damn good reason. I can only imagine the hell Dave's going through right now," Halverson said as Taylor continued to thrash and murmur one half of an unintelligible conversation in the next bed.

"I want you to drink a lot more water. Considering you're having headaches and sweating, and I just performed a lumbar puncture on you, I don't want to risk dehydration. Also, we can increase your diazepam dose if you want. It might make you more comfortable," Nelson offered.

Slowly, Halverson nodded.

* * *

Dropping the latest reports from Nelson back onto the map table, Webber swore as the Stargate roared into life, the vortex splashing unseen against the sealed Iris. He promptly strode over to the communications panel and waited. Sergeant Gibson had reported to the infirmary as ordered, increasingly distracted by strong memories infringing on her work and focus, and another member of the control room staff had followed an hour later. Webber had abandoned his office and brought the most essential paperwork with him to the control room in order to assist the remaining staff in carrying out the essential duties of the roles vacated by Gibson and her colleague, and to be present the moment the SGC contacted them.

"Lyngvi Garrison, this is Stargate Command." Webber recognised the gruff voice as belonging to General Landry.

"Webber here, General," the Brigadier replied, rubbing his temples in an attempt to stave off the headache.

"Just thought you might like to know that your Ministry of Defence and the IOA have been made aware of your situation and are rounding up vetted experts in dozens of medical disciplines as we speak. Our newest 304, the _Heracles_, is being made available to ferry supplies, medical equipment and anything else you might need if it turns out we can't beat this thing quickly. How are things looking?" Landry said.

"They could be better, general. Approximately two thirds of the base's personnel are showing at least some symptoms of the condition and that number is constantly rising. The number of severe cases, the ones who need heavy sedation or even anaesthesia, has gone up to forty-nine – that's almost a third of the people on the base and the number is still climbing. The number and nature of flashback episodes being experienced by those afflicted has led me to order all armouries locked and sealed for the duration of the crisis – we very nearly had a sergeant from 42 Commando re-enacting his part in the Battle of Al-Faw while cleaning an L85 rifle," Webber said.

"I take it nobody was hurt?" Landry asked, concerned.

"No, thank god, but it was an eye opener regarding just how dangerous this microbe could be. The good news, if it can be called that, is that nobody has yet died or shown evidence of any kind of injury, permanent or otherwise, which is nothing short of a mercy, but the disease is so incapacitating that people are finding the simplest of tasks to be challenging or losing all sense of the present, to the point that separating memory from reality gets progressively harder. Major Nelson tells me it's almost as if memory is being made so strong it overrides the present."

Webber paused, screwing his eyes shut for a moment before continuing.

"It's looking like the severe cases will need to be kept under heavy sedation and even restraint for the foreseeable future, or else they will end up a nuisance, even a threat, to the people around them. Major Nelson thinks the constant exposure to vivid memories is breaking down their ability to tell the difference, and that's one of the factors that is forcing us to work so fast – even if we get through this, the psychological fallout and recovery for a lot of my personnel is going to be very difficult," Webber said grimly.

"Understood, Brigadier. Be aware that there may be no quick fix, and that you might be there for the long haul. We've got the best people we can find working on it from this end, but without samples there's only so much they can do – I'm afraid those orders come from the IOA, and I'm inclined to agree with them for once."

"General, believe me, I understand and fervently agree with those orders," Webber said.

"Going by your description we just can't risk something this incapacitating getting through the gate. We will of course keep you supplied via the Stargate and the 304 fleet for as long as necessary, but nothing comes back and no person goes through either way. We'll be dialling in every hour to check on your progress. Landry out."

* * *

"Whatever it is, it moves damned fast. We've had twenty-seven new cases in the last two hours, all presenting the obvious symptoms. The main ward is now full – please tell me you've found something," Nelson said as he entered the laboratory and took a swig from the bottle of water in his hand. Moffatt stood waiting for him next to a computer monitor.

"Sir, I think you should see this," she said, tapping on the keyboard, forcing the screen to come to life and displaying a monochrome image of an unusual-looking microorganism.

"It's been a while since I had to cover microbiology, corporal, but that is clearly not any kind of virus or bacterium that I recognise. What is it?" Nelson said, squinting at the screen.

"It is a single celled microorganism, averaging three to four micrometres in length, but unlike bacteria it has a cell nucleus and it is positively packed with complex organelles more like an animal cell. The closest terrestrial analogue would be a protozoan, but this is definitely not terrestrial," Moffatt continued.

"Every blood test we have run has so far come back negative, so I'm going to guess you found it in the CSF?" Nelson asked.

"Yes sir. Specifically, we isolated this from Elise's cerebrospinal fluid, and we've already got cultures – whatever it is, it replicates very quickly, quicker still in the presence of anything pertaining to the central nervous system. Subsequent CSF samples from other patients are showing the same organism present in different concentrations. We've not been studying it for long, but to me there is definitely something extremely familiar about this. Put simply, I think I've seen cell structure and organelles like this before, and more than once."

"You have? Where?" Nelson asked urgently.

"Well, look at these components – although we have only been testing for a few hours, I can tell you now that they have the exact same function as mitochondria even though they're shaped and structured completely differently, like nothing on Earth. I know this because I've observed the same intracellular machinery in tissue samples taken from Nero, my pet Woolly Herbophid, and detailed records of at least one other organism. There are even similarities to the cellular make-up of the xenoheather outside which just confirms it. The microbe is definitely not an evolved or mutated terrestrial organism – this organism originated in the same biosphere as the Asgard."

Nelson stared at the screen for a while as he digested this news.

"That makes sense – it originated in a Vanir base when all's said and done. But that still doesn't explain why it's having the effect we're seeing," Nelson said. "An alien microbe that makes people remember? Why would such a thing exist?"

"Actually I have a working hypothesis – but I won't be able to confirm it without a genetic analysis or a lot more study, and we just don't have time for that," Moffatt said.

"Let's hear it anyway. There aren't that many ideas floating around as it is," Nelson replied, taking another drink from the bottle of water.

"Well, we know that Asgard and human biology are remarkably alike. Granted, most life in this galaxy and apparently several neighbours seem to share the same basic traits – it's nearly all carbon based, oxygen breathing, bisymmetric, DNA-using, with identical chirality and broadly similar biochemistry and environmental requirements, but even so, whether it's just chance or some kind of common ancestor there is a significantly stronger than normal similarity between humans and Asgard. That might go some way to explaining why this organism works so well in the human body – given how effortlessly it penetrated the blood-brain barrier, I think it was engineered to work inside an Asgard central nervous system in a symbiotic manner, and it does nearly the same job in a human body without immediately provoking a massive immune response."

"You think it was engineered? For what purpose?"

"The Asgard were very long lived, but we know that wasn't a natural biological adaptation, a product of their evolution – it was due to entirely artificial means, multiple forms of technology. They used bioengineering, cybernetics, cloning, and mind transference, all to extend their natural lifespan – which was about the same as ours, give or take a decade – to allow their race to continue even without reproduction. By the final generation of their race individuals lived lives spanning tens of millennia and hundreds of bodies, and even with their formidable brains that much accumulated information would either take its toll or be lost without some means of augmenting their recall. I think this microbe is a component of that system," Moffatt said.

"That is a very interesting theory, corporal, and the best I've heard yet – but what evidence do you have to back it up?" Nelson said.

"We know from the Asgard core that some individuals of their race ended up living for over ten thousand years despite having natural lifespans closer to ours or possibly even shorter, and yet they never demonstrated any memory problems. We never saw or heard of senility or anything comparable among their people either, or anything even approaching forgetfulness. I think this microbe is the reason why. Think of it as oiling the gears and mechanisms of the memory recall system, allowing it to effortlessly and swiftly remember anything as needed."

"That… makes a lot of sense actually. But it doesn't explain why we've never encountered it before in all our dealings with the Asgard, why no human has ever contracted this disease before."

"Maybe it was a new or experimental strain, or it mutated? Elise said they found it in what looked like a laboratory, after all. I'd hazard a guess that the organism isn't supposed to be this contagious, if at all," Moffatt answered, shaking her head. "Now, sir, if I might ask… how long have you been experiencing the symptoms?"

"I'm sorry?"

"Every time you think I can't see, you rub your head like you have a headache, your pupils are dilated, you're starting to perspire and you've been drinking water copiously for the last hour, as if you have a dry mouth or a sore throat, and you're speaking in much shorter sentences as well as asking more questions or else making it my turn in the conversation so as to reduce your role and to better hide the fact that you're involuntarily recalling memories with great ease," Moffatt said matter-of-factly as she gathered her notes and restored the computer to its normal mode.

Nelson blinked, started to form words and then simply smiled, putting his hands up and shrugging in mock defeat.

"Two hours eight minutes since I first noticed it. It's why I missed Langer getting up, I was remembering being at Sandhurst in frankly excruciating detail," he said, smiling wanly. "I should have known you'd see it. I read your report when I first came here – 'has demonstrated exceptional capacity for observation and insight', 'possesses an unnaturally keen eye for detail', 'wasted in a field role and as an NCO'. I'm inclined to agree with every point… with your brain you should have been an officer and a doctor."

"Sir, if you're –" Moffatt began.

"Captain Pickering prescribed me a low dosage of diazepam to try and stave it off, reduce the symptoms and keep me functioning for longer. The way I see it I've got a few hours of perfect recall before things get messy, so I may as well use them to my advantage, see if I can dredge up something of use before the flashbacks start," he said, smiling again. "I will stand down the moment somebody tells me to, corporal, but until then I intend to squeeze as much use out of this situation as I can."

"Understood, sir. I was wondering if –"

There was an almighty crash and a quick scream from outside the laboratory, coming from the direction of the main ward. Nelson turned and sprinted, closely followed by Moffatt.

Amid scattered medical supplies thrown clear of an overturned trolley and a puddle filled with fragments of smashed glass where several vials of fluid had hit the floor, Doctor Stafford and a medical technician lay sprawled, the technician struggling to breathe properly and the doctor clutching her face and moaning in pain – blood oozed between the fingers of her surgical gloves. Next to the double doors a medical officer with a trickle of blood running down his head lay slumped against the wall he had clearly been slammed into and Nelson prayed the man was merely unconscious.

"What the hell happened here?" Nelson yelled as medical techs and other staff rushed to assist their three downed colleagues and clear up the mess. Only then did he realise that one of the ward's beds was empty.

"It's Major Taylor, sir, he's lost it! Just smashed Doctor Stafford in the face as she tried to up his sedative, kicked me in the gut then threw us both to the ground and bolted for the door," the technician on the floor blurted, still in pain and clutching his stomach. Upon hearing this, two of the technicians immediately began to head out of the infirmary in an attempt to immediately recover the missing officer.

"No! Wait!" Moffatt yelled. "If he's remembering something traumatic enough to make him feel he needs to fight his way out of here, he'll more than likely pulverise you if you try to stop him. I think I know who to call."

* * *

_The dense jungle of Sierra Leone stretched down the side of the hill, lush green foliage flanking the pale line of the dirt-track, the driver of the Land Rover apparently mindless of the frequent ditches and potholes as it sped towards its eastern destination in the failing light._

"_So what're you doing here, Lieutenant? I didn't realise the Royal Anglians were part of Op Palliser," the officer in the front passenger seat, a maroon beret-wearing man by the name of Major Crane, said over his shoulder._

"_Technically we're not, sir – at least, not yet. Apparently I've been attached as an observer to 1 Para ahead of a possible deployment later this year," the officer in the back said._

"_Ah. 'Attached as an observer', I think I know what that's code for," the officer in the front said, grinning to the Lance-Corporal driving the Land Rover._

"_I'm glad somebody does sir, because I've yet to find out why I'm here," the officer in the back replied, wiping the accumulated sweat off his brow._

"_They didn't brief you?" Crane asked incredulously._

"_Other than 'get your arse onto the next Hercules out of Lyneham, and pack for sun with a chance of AK-47 fire', no sir," the twenty-seven year old lieutenant replied dryly. Crane chuckled._

"_What did you say your name was again?"_

"_Taylor, sir. Lieutenant Dave Taylor."_

"_Well Lieutenant Taylor, 'attached as an observer' normally means exactly what it sounds like – unless it happens to be a lone officer attached to an elite unit like the Paras specifically for an op like this, in which case it means he's either caught somebody's attention or – "_

_A succession of loud, sharp cracks rippled across the front of the vehicle, one of them accompanied by a bang. With a front tyre suddenly blown out by incoming fire, the vehicle swerved dramatically towards the edge of the road and skidded over the lip of the forested slope._

"_Enemy contact!" Crane yelled, bracing himself against the dashboard and seizing hold of his SA80. Jamming his feet against the far bench Taylor quickly looked for his own rifle as the light truck bucked, bounced and slid towards the bottom of the hill. "Crap! This is going to hurt!"_

_Though the Lance-Corporal tried in vain to control the vehicle as it careened down the hill and guide it between trees and away from other obstacles, the loss of the front left tyre meant he was fighting an unwinnable battle. In seconds the light truck's nose jammed against a tree trunk, smashing one of the headlights and throwing everybody inside violently forward, but the momentum kept the vehicle moving, pivoting ninety degrees about the tree impeding its progress. Still with plenty of kinetic energy but with the tyres now working against the vehicle's direction of motion, the Land Rover toppled._

_Cursing to himself and grunting with pain and exertion, Taylor desperately tried to cling to something as the vehicle quickly rolled over and tumbled down the forested hillside, his world instantaneously transformed into a nightmare of furious motion and sickening sensation as he slammed repeatedly into the floor, benches, walls and ceiling. Around him glass crunched and shattered, metal screamed and twisted and soldiers yelled in pain as they were flung violently around the rolling vehicle's interior._

_Almost as suddenly as the ordeal in the confined space had started it stopped, only now Taylor was rolling and tumbling and sliding without any semblance of control through baked soil and leaf litter, flung free of the crumpled Land Rover. As he banged into roots and rebounded off tree trunks he caught a brief glimpse of his rifle slipping from his grasp and bouncing away from him down the hill, components flying off it as his world span, light, dark, light, dark._

_It felt like it lasted a lifetime, but eventually Taylor slammed into a final patch of ground and stayed there, every single part of his body wracked with some degree of pain. He was stunned by the repeated impacts with the inside of the truck and the outside of the hill, fighting to hold on to consciousness and long since having been robbed of anything resembling coherent thought. He lay there, waiting for the motion in his head to catch up to the rest of his now still form, sensations of intense aching and throbbing washing over his entire body. There was a hot metallic taste coating every surface of his mouth and the stinging ache of a deep cut somewhere on his torso, but Taylor stayed inert as the world span, even though his eyes told him it was no longer moving, and it took him several seconds to realise he was in fact lying flat on his back, his leg twisted awkwardly underneath him. Performing a quick evaluation and inventory of his person he decided that he was very lucky to have avoided anything more than lots of superficial injuries, most of them bruises._

_There was shouting coming from some distance away, and as his mind started to clear he realised that although it was in English it was not Crane's voice or accent, nor that of the driver. Rolling onto his front and pushing himself to his feet took more effort than he had expected, and he promptly half-stumbled, half-flopped back to the ground upon discovering his balance wasn't quite recovered and several joints were sore and tender, only then seeing the Land Rover wreckage._

_Lying on the same level part of ground as him it was nevertheless a lot further away than he'd expected at nearly fifty metres distant and visible only because one of its headlights was still functioning, illuminating part of the jungle. The vehicle was toppled onto its side, nearly on its roof, and was now missing two wheels. Probably because the roof had crumpled the windscreen had shattered, scattering fragments of safety glass across a wide area, and steam belched from its destroyed radiator. Even from this distance, Taylor could smell leaking diesel. Most importantly of all though, he could see a prone figure on the ground moving sluggishly and with great effort away from the vehicle, and the odd reflection off the person's head suggested a face slick with blood._

_There were lots of voices, and they sounded angry and threatening – given that somebody from roughly this direction had taken shots at his vehicle, his gut told him they were not concerned locals rushing to render assistance. As this realisation hit him, a wave of cold swept over his body and his heart began pounding even faster. The silhouettes he could just make out working their way hurriedly through the trees were RUF combatants carrying assault rifles, and they were looking to kill Crane, the driver… and him. That meant that after nearly five years of service, this was his first time in combat._

_And he didn't have his weapon._

_He cast about for the rifle, knowing it had been torn from his fingers shortly after he had been flung from the back of the Land Rover during the ferocious end over end trip down the hill, and he remembered it cartwheeling away from him. After five seconds that felt like an eternity, Taylor concluded that he wasn't going to find the weapon in this light without an extensive, prolonged and methodical search he just didn't have time for, and the force of its trip had probably rendered it useless anyway._

_With his breathing quickened and his gut feeling cold and climbing upwards, Taylor charged towards the wreck and the survivor he'd seen trying to crawl away from it, knowing that he quickly needed to check on Crane and the driver and see if he could acquire another weapon. He sprinted through the jungle until he got to the overturned off-road vehicle. Crane lay nearly face down a few metres away from it, his head half covered in a slick layer of crimson, his legs looking inert and injured – Crane's right foot appeared twisted, the calf of his left trouser leg dark with blood. Surprisingly, Crane wasn't unconscious, gazing back at Taylor as the lieutenant assessed his superior's injuries, but judging from the sluggish movements and drooping eyelids, he wasn't far from it and was probably in shock._

"_Taylor…"_

"_Sir, stay with me," Taylor urged in a hushed voice, his mouth suddenly dry and his face and ears hot. He could feel his heart pounding madly, his lungs taking shallow, rushed breaths and his stomach feeling like it was trying to crawl up his throat as he stared wide-eyed into the darkened jungle, hoping he wouldn't see any movement – he couldn't remember ever being this scared, but he also knew he had to focus. He knew he didn't have nearly enough time to splint the major's legs, and he couldn't risk trying to drag Crane out of the way because it was highly probable he would cry out in pain. The RUF fighters sounded to be getting much closer and Taylor realised that with seconds before they were on the scene his priority now had to be defence, or else the Revolutionary United Front would acquire three new hostages, if he was lucky. Even this outcome would be monumentally bad, because Crane needed immediate medical attention that Taylor knew he would not get if they were taken prisoner – more likely he would be shot there and then. There was also a chance the RUF would shoot all of them anyway._

_Leaving Crane, he dashed to the vehicle, hunched down and stared inside. The driver was collapsed on the upturned roof in an unconscious heap, but there was much less blood and evidence of grievous trauma compared to Crane. Of greater immediate importance to Taylor was the object underneath him. He stretched his arm out, trying to grasp the bullpup rifle by the butt and cried out as he was promptly yanked back and almost off his feet by the closest of the now angrily yelling fighters as another, a silent and particularly huge man wearing a faded red t-shirt and an expression of hatred, walked up to him brandishing an AK-47 that had seen better days. Big Red was flanked by two other men, one of them wearing an open camouflage jacket holding a worn FN FAL, the other stripped to the waist and wielding a Kalashnikov-type gun with taped magazines, all of them yelling angrily and gesturing at Taylor and the Land Rover, except for one. Seeing Big Red calmly approach Crane's prone form and rack his ex-Soviet weapon, Taylor felt pure, existential terror build in him, his stomach leaping up his throat, his mouth drying and his body going cold as a surge of chemicals from above his kidneys saturated his bloodstream._

_Taylor snapped in an instant, the adrenaline making him simultaneously furious and calculating. Trying not to yell he smashed the heel of his left foot down on his captor's toes and twisted out of his grip, then with his new footing immediately let loose a punch that slammed into the man's face with astonishing force and just as quickly reversed the strike to slam his elbow into the face of the second fighter as he moved up to deal with the threat. With both men temporarily stunned, Taylor delivered a vicious strike to the gut of his former captor that caused the man to double over followed by an elbow strike to back of the neck that floored the man. Spinning to face the second fighter he pushed forward with his back leg and planted his other foot in the man's chest with explosive force. Although the fighter staggered backwards and wobbled he stayed barely upright, struggling to raise his FN rifle. Grunting with the exertion Taylor surged forwards, wrapped an arm around the man's neck and forcefully pulled him backwards to the ground, stood up and slammed his combat boot into the man's groin before delivering a brutal, gravity-assisted knee strike to the downed fighter's solar plexus followed by a knockout jab to his pained face._

_As he once again stood up, searching for the final targets, a powerful pair of arms wrapped themselves around him, trapping his own limbs by his side and lifting him bodily off the jungle floor as the man with the taped magazines rushed forward. Unable to break the hold, Taylor yelled and snapped his head back with great power against what he hoped was the bridge of Big Red's nose. After two more hits he suspected he must have hit something because the grip loosened enough for him to break free, and as he hit the ground he stepped forward and fired off a back kick without looking that connected with something hard that gave and forced a barely contained grunt of pain. The force and recoil of the kick propelled Taylor away, enabling him to close quickly with the final combatant as the ex-Soviet rifle was raised in his direction. Taylor's left hand flashed out and connected heavily with the fighter's throat, immediately stopping the man in his tracks as he dropped his rifle and clutched at his neck. Taylor didn't let up, using his other hand to land a jab on his temple and force the man's head into Taylor's swiftly rising knee. Without waiting to see if that had finished the combatant off he used his left leg to sweep the man's feet out from under him and send him crashing into the leaf litter of the jungle floor._

_Using the sweep to turn, he saw Big Red on his knees, stunned, in pain and struggling to get up while clutching his nose and his knee. Continuing the momentum of the sweep, Taylor unleashed a furious hook into the man's face and followed through with an elbow strike that resulted in a sickening crack and the immediate reshaping of the man's badly swollen nose, blood oozing down his face from inside and out. Taylor grasped the man's shoulder and rained punches into his final target's head, chest and stomach, systematically and incrementally robbing the man of his fight and consciousness. Taylor retracted his fist for one final knockout punch…_

…as he looked down at an agonised, stunned and unintelligibly mumbling Jarvis, his nose smashed to one side and streaming blood over the bottom half of his face. His top lip was split, his mouth swelling while angry welts surrounded his eye and swelled his cheek, and as Taylor looked, the terrible, guilty realisation of the damage he'd wrought washed over him. He turned, distantly acknowledging that his heart was hammering faster and louder than he'd ever known, his lungs were struggling to draw enough air and his skin was slick and clothes saturated with perspiration. Dazed and horrified, he saw two Royal Marines and a soldier lying on the floor of the corridor immediately behind him, only one of them remotely conscious. There was a thud against his leg, and he looked down in shock to see that with his last ounce of strength and clarity Jarvis had lashed out and buried a now-empty syringe in his superior's thigh before sagging against the wall and letting unconsciousness finally embrace him.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

Moffatt watched with alarm as orderlies and technicians brought Taylor's limp, sweat-soaked form in on a gurney, followed by three marines and a soldier in various states of unconsciousness and pain, clearly the victims of brutal beatings.

"My God," she breathed as she looked at the injuries dealt them. She had seen a brief display of Taylor's martial arts prowess before against several of Alsa's people on P2C-355. That had simply been to subdue a trio of understandably scared and angry locals, but this was very different – four highly trained and very capable combatants in peak physical condition taken down by one man who wasn't even in his right mind. As she watched, she realised that one of the marines appeared to be a tall, heavily-built man with a sergeant's stripes, his face obscured by numerous dressings and ice packs as well as massive swelling, dark bruising and the layer of dark red blood that streamed out of his nose and covered his chin and jaw and filled his mouth, and Moffatt realised with a horrified lurch that it was Jarvis, clinging to the last scrap of consciousness in his skull.

"This is what I was afraid of," Nelson said wearily as he walked past her to investigate the injured men. He seemed drained, distracted and not entirely sure of himself. "Major Taylor will need to be kept on a strong sedative drip from now on, because we cannot afford to have him wake up again while he's under the influence of this… affliction. In the absence of any better ideas, I've… um, I've ordered broad-spectrum antibiotics and mild sedatives be administered to as many people as possible in the hope it might at least buy… time. But we don't have enough medication for everybody. Nevertheless, it's clear that I should have prescribed stronger sedation from the start."

"With respect sir, I believe you did the right thing – you were concerned about the side effects of high dosage and you were trying to preserve what stocks we have. Are you sure you're alright, sir?" Moffatt said, noticing Nelson's unfocussed demeanour. He didn't immediately respond, instead standing with his eyes closed as if waiting for something to pass or willing it to go away. After a few seconds, he irritably waved one of the few remaining doctors over to see to the new arrivals even though he had clearly intended to examine them himself. He turned away, discarding the latex gloves he had picked up only moments before, and headed back to his office.

"Just… show me your findings please, corporal," he eventually answered, his voice low and tired as he eased himself into his chair. Moffatt placed a laptop on his desk and swivelled it to face him. On the display was a phase contrast video from a digital microscope.

"There's good news and bad news. The good news is that since the lumbar puncture you performed on Dr Halverson revealed the microbe, we've been running tests on multiple CSF samples from several patients, each sample drawn at a different stage of the disease. The results indicate that the microglial cells in the brain can deal with the infection quite effectively and should have no problem wiping it out, given enough time," she said, her laptop displaying a video of the brain's immune cells engulfing and consuming the foreign microbes.

"So, what's the bad news?"

Moffatt nodded uncertainly, taking a deep breath before changing the video showing on her laptop to one showing dozens of individual alien microbial cells.

"This is a video, running at about twenty times normal speed, of a sample of the microbe in a petri dish containing a solution analogous to cerebrospinal fluid, replicating at what we think is it's normal rate – each microbe duplicates about every ten minutes," Moffatt said. Nelson stared at it thoughtfully.

"Okay, that's fast, but not out of the realms of possibility even for a terrestrial microbe. And if this was indeed engineered that might explain it too," Nelson commented, screwing his eyes up in deep thought.

"That's what we thought. Ever since we isolated it we've been culturing it to try different approaches to combating it – temperature, pH, various medications, whatever we can think of that might possibly have an effect. Now, I was thinking about the Asgard and the biological similarities we have to them that allow this organism to function so well in a human body… and then I thought about the differences between the two species. So, if I fast-forward to later in the video," Moffatt said, pausing to fiddle with the laptop, "this is the same culture of the microbe, only now being exposed to a small quantity of one of our test substances."

"Bloody hell… is that the same speed as before?" Nelson said, mouth agape as he stared at the screen. Where before it had taken thirty seconds of the video for one of the organisms to completely undergo binary fission and become two organisms, he had just seen the same thing happen in slightly less than ten seconds.

"I'm afraid so – the microbe's rate of reproduction more than triples in response. The microglial cells are doing their job but are simply being swamped – the microbe is replicating so fast it's outstripping their ability to destroy foreign material."

"So… if we can slow that replication down, there's a chance the victim's own immune systems can eradicate the infection? What's the…," Nelson paused, cutting himself off mid-sentence as he reeled from the chaos inside his head.

Moffatt started to nod in agreement with Nelson's assessment of the situation, but the officer's behaviour meant that her concern for Nelson had reached breaking point.

"Sir, I have to say… are you fit to continue?"

Nelson gazed at her.

"Corporal… if I remember correctly," Nelson said, chuckling at his own joke, "we have nearly one hundred and sixty people on this base now, and the majority of them are already demonstrating symptoms of the condition – for the rest it seems to be only a matter of time. With our wards maxed out I've ordered most of them confined to quarters. Almost all of the medical staff have been incapacitated or are struggling because of their exposure, Stafford has a broken nose and a concussion as well, we're rapidly burning through our stocks of pharmaceuticals and we still don't know how to combat this damn microbe or even what makes it affect some people faster than others."

"I appreciate all that sir, but that doesn't change the fact that you're clearly struggling to stay focused and periodically zone out altogether. Are you still able to function well enough to be of use in the current crisis?"

Irritably, Nelson motioned to the chair next to his.

"Okay, we need to talk. Take a seat, corporal…"

* * *

"_Please, come in and take a seat corporal."_

_Moffatt did as she was told, closing the door behind her and quickly seating herself on the opposite side of the table from the officer. The room was sparsely furnished enough to feel reminiscent of an interrogation room, and her heart hammered in her chest. She still didn't know why she had been pulled from her duties to talk to an unknown officer who uncertainly shuffled through his papers._

_She studied him as best she could without making it obvious. The three pips on his shoulder marks said he was a captain, and she knew immediately from his appearance and bearing that he wasn't a medical officer of any description. For one thing he had calloused and unusually thick, powerful looking fingers… a rock climber? She decided to put his age as maybe mid-thirties, though it was hard to pinpoint as his craggy-looking face looked like it had taken some punishment over the years – the nose had certainly been broken at least once. His black, slightly curly hair was a little longer than regulations should allow and he had a heavy, natural tan – back from a tour in Afghanistan perhaps? Probably, but that wasn't all there was to it - _

_From what she could see, the service dress covered a body that looked to be well built, but in a compact and entirely practical manner rather than for looks. He seemed rather more laidback than most officers she encountered and there was the suggestion of supreme self-confidence earned through considerable experience, but also one of definite lethality. Although she couldn't see it present she decided she wouldn't be remotely surprised to find he typically wore a beige beret with a badge prominently featuring what looked like a winged dagger._

"_So, what's your assessment?" he said nonchalantly and without looking up after a few seconds had elapsed._

"_Sorry sir… I wasn't expecting to be talking to a member of the Special Air Service today," she answered quickly. The officer looked up and grinned._

"_Nothing to apologise for – I would have been disappointed if you hadn't given me the once over, going by your file. It is part of the reason I'm here, after all," he said. "I'll come straight to the point. I'm assembling a team, and you're on the shortlist."_

"_A team? Can I ask what for sir?" Moffatt said._

"_You can ask, but don't expect an answer. Not yet, anyway," the officer said casually._

"_So you're saying… I have to be selected in order to find out _why_ I've been selected?"_

"_That's pretty much it, yes. Okay, so it's all a bit cloak and dagger, but trust me – it will be well worth it. Now, tell me why I should pick you over the three other candidates I have on this list."_

"_Without knowing what you need me for, that's tricky," Moffatt said hesitantly._

"_Not a problem," the officer said, starting to collect his papers. "There are still three others on this list that I can interview."_

_Moffatt thought quickly, trying to work out what he wanted to hear, but also trying to determine what she would be letting herself in for if she accepted without knowing what lay ahead. An officer of the United Kingdom's Special Forces was interviewing her personally for an unknown position on an operation wrapped in secrecy – that alone was so bizarre she had to know what followed._

"_With respect sir, I didn't say I wasn't interested – I appreciate that anything connected with the Special Forces is going to be secret and sensitive, I just like to have as much information as possible before I make a decision."_

_The officer continued to gather his papers as she spoke, and was nearly packed up and ready to move on._

"_As for why you need me on your team… I've pulled fragments of a seven six two sniper round out of a soldier's gut then packed his intestines back inside him all while under intense Taliban fire, I've known you two minutes and I can already say you're a rock climber and probably a keen sportsman or perhaps martial artist who's just returned not from Afghanistan but an extended stay in the States judging by your language. I've clearly been vetted by the security services if I'm this far into the process, I'm insightful, educated, trained and very capable, and no matter what that list says you'd be hard pressed to find anybody with the same set of skills and qualities anywhere else."_

_The officer paused and considered her words. Then he leaned forwards._

"_Corporal, for this conversation to continue I'm going to require you to sign the Official Secrets Act," he said, moving a scary looking legal document across the surface of the table towards Moffatt._

"_No offence sir, but I did that when I first joined the Army," Moffatt said, confused._

"_I appreciate that, but trust me on this, you need to sign it again if you want this interview to continue."_

_After several minutes of having the various sections, penalties and needed signatures pointed out to her by the officer, Moffatt put her pen down and slid the document back across the table. Satisfied, he moved it to one side, then looked at her and smiled._

"_Captain Dave Taylor, formerly of 22 SAS, pleased to meet you."_

* * *

"…Corporal?"

Moffatt looked uncertainly at Nelson, then quickly crossed the room to the chair he had indicated.

"It's started happening to you now, hasn't it?" Nelson asked.

"Yes sir… it had to happen sooner or later," Moffatt said.

"Good that it's taken this long – you're one of the last members of the medical staff to exhibit the symptoms. Look… you're right. I can barely function at the moment, the lucid intervals are getting fewer and it's taking every iota of willpower I have to stay focused… I can't do this for much longer. Right now it's only a matter of time before I have another episode, so listen to me. I'm stepping down. You may not be a doctor, but in my opinion you're not far off, you're a damned fine biologist and you've got ten times the experience with alien medical crap than anybody else here, not to mention a talent for seeing things others don't. Going by the rate the staff is being incapacitated by this microbe very shortly it's going to be up to you to beat this thing."

"Sir, I can't – " Moffatt began to protest. Nelson irritably raised a hand to silence her.

"You can, you will and you must. The base is already just about paralysed and we're running short of time, so here are my orders: find a way to slow this thing down, buy more time, whatever you need. It's all up to you from here on out."

* * *

Very slowly, something resembling consciousness started to return in trickles and drops. Sensation was beginning to return and after a while of lying very still on what felt like a bed and trying to make sense of the sounds and smells he was experiencing he decided to try opening his eyes. He immediately regretted it, not least because one of them appeared to be held shut and very cold. It didn't help that his head was pounding and swimming, a wave of nausea sweeping over him with the slightest movement. Concentration was difficult and he ricocheted between needing to wake and wanting to sleep. All the while his body felt strange, somewhat numb and unresponsive, his muscles apparently made of jelly as they required tremendous mental effort from him to effect any significant movement.

Realising it would take a little more time before he could even prop himself up on his elbows, he gave up trying to move for the moment, instead concentrating on getting his bearings. The area was well lit by fluorescent strip lights that initially hurt his blurry eye, and he could hear a number of people present, many of them moving urgently or with considerable purpose. Behind the footsteps and the voices, most of them hushed, he could hear a rhythmic beeping somewhere else in the room.

He slowly became aware of somebody standing at the foot of his bed.

"Good to see you back amongst us, Sergeant," the nurse said. She looked hassled, distracted and as if she had gone without sleep for a week. "Take it slowly. You should start to feel stronger soon, but you took one hell of a beating from Major Taylor… we weren't sure when you were going to wake up."

"Or if," Jarvis mumbled, nearly hissing at the pain this caused him. His mouth felt swollen and stung as he spoke. He tried to sit up again but after a few seconds he gave up once he had confirmed that his muscles were currently on strike and that everything hurt.

"Well, it's not quite that bad… although you do have rather considerable bruising across much of your body and your knee looks pretty swollen. However, it's your head that took most of the punishment," the nurse said matter-of-factly, reaching out for the ice pack that sat on one side of the Sergeant's face.

"Nothing important then," Jarvis murmured.

"Funny. You've got a rather nasty split lip and bruised jaw, looks like your left eye is still swollen shut – you're going to have a beautiful shiner there for a week or two – and most notably your nose was broken. We reset it, but it's going to be swollen and painful for some time. You were lucky not to get concussion…"

"Thick skull," Jarvis said.

"…though judging by the bruising I'm guessing you probably have the mother of all headaches to go with it," the nurse continued.

"How'd you guess," Jarvis said again. The nurse smirked humourlessly.

"How's the memory? Let me help you sit up a bit… there you go," she said as she helped to haul him somewhat upright, propped up against pillows. Gently, she pushed a plastic cup filled with water into his hand.

"I remember every hit," Jarvis muttered as he sipped the cool liquid, trying not to aggravate his split lip or broken nose.

"Well that's not quite what I meant – have you had any flashbacks?" the nurse asked.

"Not yet."

The nurse was quiet for a moment as she scribbled something on her clipboard. Grunting with pain and exertion, Jarvis started to swing his legs over the edge of the bed. As the nurse had promised, his strength was slowly returning.

"And where do you think you're going?" she asked. "You are in no condition to get up and move around. You need to rest for a while."

"How many left?" Jarvis asked.

"Sorry, what?" the nurse answered, shaking her head in confusion.

"Not many people can still think straight. I can."

As the nurse failed to formulate an argument and reluctantly conceded the Sergeant's point, Jarvis looked up at the sound of two distinctly different sets of footsteps approaching until the infirmary doors opened. The dull thud of standard issue combat boots on the floor contrasted with the click of high heels as Fliss quickly followed Moffatt through the main ward and into the medical section's laboratory.

Seeing this, Jarvis pushed himself off the bed with support from the nurse, trying to put most of his weight on the leg that didn't have a knee that felt like it was about to explode and started to hobble towards the laboratory wing, ignoring the nurse's protestations.

As he entered the laboratory itself he saw Moffatt stride quickly to the whiteboard as she gestured for the IOA representative to take a seat. Jarvis limped towards an empty seat next to Fliss.

"Sergeant Jarvis!" Fliss said, surprised.

"Don't mind me," Jarvis croaked.

"Sarge?" Moffatt said as she turned to see him easing himself into a chair. "You look like hell. Are you supposed to be up and about yet?"

"Probably not."

"Oh. Okay."

Fliss tentatively raised a hand.

"Why do you want me here? I'll do what I can to help Corporal, but I honestly don't know what you think I can do that doesn't involve talking to the IOA. As far as I understand it with the Stargate locked out under quarantine protocol I can only do that if and when Stargate Command dial in to check on our progress," she said.

"Look, Miss Armstrong-Forbes –" Moffatt began.

"Oh please, call me Fliss," Fliss chirped automatically.

"Okay Fliss, look out there," Moffatt said, pointing out of the laboratory window into the heavily overcrowded main ward of the infirmary. "It's going to be up to the three of us to fight this thing, and we don't have much time. At last check pretty much all base personnel are affected in some way by this bug, the Garrison is under full quarantine with a locked out Stargate so we can't realistically expect outside help, our commanding officer is paralysed by Falkland and Gulf War flashbacks and what remains of our medical staff can just barely cope with keeping the worst cases sedated, but probably not for much longer. You, me and Sergeant Jarvis are the most functional people left on-base, by dint of being the last people on base to exhibit the symptoms… actually, are you exhibiting any symptoms at all? Enhanced recall, lapses in concentration, anything? Any flashbacks even?"

"Oh yes, I've had a number of those," Fliss said casually.

"What, really? Why didn't you tell anybody?"

"Well, you were all so busy and everybody else seemed to be in rather a lot of distress. I found the whole experience rather pleasant, truth be told," Fliss said, smiling slightly.

"Seriously? Pleasant? What were the flashbacks about?" Jarvis asked.

"Oh, well, I remembered going with my grandmother to pick my university graduation present from the showroom – I settled on a silver Boxster convertible, wonderfully nippy little thing! Then I remembered the very first time I went horse riding – fell off very quickly and got back on just as quickly. Oh, and I remembered my first ever cup of tea! A match made in heaven, and I've never looked back since."

Moffat was momentarily dumbfounded. Jarvis started to chuckle to himself.

"Okay, if we get through this, promise me you'll never tell Doctor Halverson about any of that?" she said after a few seconds.

"Only so I can tell her. It'll be bloody hilarious," Jarvis said as Moffatt suppressed a grin. Not knowing how to react, Fliss decided to change the subject.

"What about you, corporal? Why do you think it's taken so long for the microbe to affect you?" she asked. Moffatt shook her head.

"I don't know. I don't know all the factors that determine how quickly somebody is affected by this organism. Maybe part of it is just some random chance. All I know is that it seems that, given time, the macrophages in our immune system can combat it," Moffatt said. Feeling confused, Jarvis looked around and saw the utterly clueless expression on Fliss's face.

"Uh… mackerel what?" Jarvis said quickly.

"Macrophages are cells that consume foreign material in our bodies. Now, the brain is isolated from most of the immune system by the blood-brain barrier, so it basically has its own immune system, and a major part of that system is a type of macrophage called a microglial cell," Moffatt said, before trailing off. "You know, I think a really big piece of the puzzle just dropped into place."

"How so?" Fliss asked.

"Okay, look," Moffatt said, turning to the whiteboard and beginning to sketch. "The Asgard were once very much like us – so much so they were studying us to work out how to reverse their sterility and prevent the extinction of their species. We think that's why the microbe works in us, right?"

"That just about makes sense, I think, but still, could you remind me why they died out?" Fliss said, looking uncertain. At Moffatt's raised eyebrow she shrugged sheepishly. "Yes, I know this was all in the briefing we got in Nevada, I'm sorry. I'm just better with intergovernmental histrionics than intergalactic history."

Moffatt nodded understanding before continuing.

"Okay, fair enough. We think that because of the modifications they made to themselves using genetic engineering, starting at some point in the last twenty-nine thousand years or so the Asgard started to lose the ability to reproduce, until about a thousand years ago the entire species was deemed sterile. By this time they had long since turned to cloning and mind transference to perpetuate their species, and then a few years back their final attempt to undo the millennia of accumulated damage they'd done to their genome instead left all of them with an irreversible and terminal disease – so they elected to commit mass suicide rather than see their race suffer and wither away," Moffatt said.

"Can't say I blame them," Jarvis muttered.

"We know the microbe is Asgard or Vanir in origin, so my theory is this – I think it was designed to work inside their brains to enhance their memory recall because of their tremendous but unnatural lifespans," Moffatt said.

"And it does more or less the same job in ours because Asgard and human physiology is extremely similar?" Fliss asked uncertainly.

"Precisely! Except for one thing – in humans the microbe grows out of control, and after my experiment I think I know why. Despite the similarities one of the major anatomical and biochemical differences between us and the Asgard is that they didn't have adrenal glands or even any form of adrenaline. In the presence of adrenaline, the microbe goes into overdrive – it replicates faster, it moves faster, it does whatever the hell it does to neurons faster."

"Okay…"

Moffatt ignored the increasing doubt in Fliss's voice and started to draw a crude diagram on the whiteboard.

"Now, as you probably know humans have a fight-or-flight response that kicks in to deal with stressful situations, and one of the first things the sympathetic nervous system does when a person gets stressed is… ?" Moffatt asked.

"Uh…" Jarvis said.

"It floods the body with adrenaline! So, what happens if a person gets infected with this microbe and then remembers something traumatic? They get a surge of adrenaline, which feeds the microbe, which makes recall even easier, and because the person is already stressed it likely acts as a trigger so they're probably going to recall another stressful event, which releases more adrenaline and hey presto, you've got a vicious circle," Moffatt said triumphantly, indicating the cycle she had sketched on the board. "The more traumatic memories people have, the more likely they are to recall them relative to other memories because they've just had a stressful recall episode, and so they deteriorate faster."

Jarvis nodded. "That makes sense… I think."

"Now think – we're in a base filled with the best examples of the British armed forces, all of whom have seen combat and many of whom have probably seen people killed or have been injured themselves. No wonder Major Taylor's symptoms accelerated faster than anybody else – the stuff he's seen must be PTSD fodder as it is. Throwing this thing into the mix is not good news."

Fliss's face screwed up in deep thought.

"So your theory is that the more bad memories somebody has, the sooner they will start to show symptoms of this disease, and that's why you think I'm not in as bad a state as everybody else, because I don't have a head full of war memories. Forgive me, corporal, but how does that explain why you've taken so long to be affected? The Stargate Program and the SWRS only accept the very best, most experienced people, and while I agree that I may have led a sheltered, privileged life compared to everybody else here, I know that you don't get the experience they're looking for without being out in the field and seeing terrible things first hand," Fliss said.

Jarvis grunted, impressed, and Moffatt was momentarily taken aback – the IOA representative had a keener, deeper mind than anybody had yet given her credit for.

"Well, you're right that it's certainly not to do with lack of traumatic memories – you don't serve as a medic in Afghanistan without picking up more than a few of those. My guess is that because of the head trauma I suffered last year either my microglial cells are still working overtime to minimise any complications or the drugs I was on after surgery have given me a bit more time than most, or some combination of the two, but that is only a guess," Moffatt said.

"Huh, maybe the Major beating the crap out of me did the same thing for my head," Jarvis said.

"Quite possibly. It also may just be random luck or a host of genetic factors that determines the speed with which the infection takes hold – I doubt anybody is immune, but it may affect different people at different rates. For example, Sarge, when did you first go to a football match?" Moffatt asked. Somewhat defensively, Jarvis looked at her and at Fliss, then seemed to relent.

"Twenty-seventh of March, nineteen eighty two. Ewood Park, watching Rovers play Crystal Palace at home with my uncle, just days before he left on the Falklands task force," he answered.

"Football? I would have pegged you for a rugby man," Fliss said.

"Any flashbacks?" Moffatt asked.

"Had a short one, nothing special. Just Atlantis," Jarvis said dismissively.

"So, how can this disease be treated? I mean, short of giving everybody head injuries," Fliss asked.

"That's the big question. At the moment we're just treating the symptoms and hoping we can keep everybody alive long enough for their own immune systems to defeat the infection. However, even if we beat it this time I'm worried about the prospect of re-infection. We're fairly sure the microbe is transmitted by touch, and it might even be small enough to be airborne, so potentially the whole base is contaminated, maybe even the whole planet. Even if we can cure everybody here, we might have to abandon not just the Garrison but Lyngvi completely," Moffatt said.

* * *

"Here, I thought you could use this."

Fliss set the steaming mug on the bench next to Moffatt.

"How's it looking out there?" Moffatt asked, leaning back from the microscope and reaching for the drink.

"Things could be better. The SGC dialled in about half an hour ago, so I updated them as best I could," Fliss said, sipping her drink and glanced quickly at a clipboard she had previously tucked under one arm. "The _Heracles_ is en route to enforce our quarantine, deploy decontamination teams or render limited medical assistance as needed, and the IOA are preparing to send medical supplies through the Stargate. However, given how contagious this disease is they don't want to risk sending anybody through or down from a ship unless absolutely necessary, and they can't assist with studying the microbe because they won't allow us to send any samples for them to study. Nothing goes back."

"So we're on our own with an almost paralysed base, and we're fast running out of time before we all succumb. Great," Moffatt said, cradling the warm mug.

"Perhaps it's best not to worry about that right now. How do we at least get everybody here through the next few hours?" Fliss asked.

"Well, at the moment we're sticking with sedatives, but I can't help but wonder if that just buries the problem rather than dealing with it. I think we need to break the cycle."

"How do we do that?"

"I don't know, maybe we could try to boost the immune system or neutralise the adrenaline, which might starve the microbe or at least slow down the progression of the symptoms. I'm not completely sure how though, because regardless of what Major Nelson says, I'm not actually a doctor. Even then we might need days to wade through all the textbooks and literature," Moffatt said.

"Can't you just ask one of the doctors out there?" Fliss said.

"Yes but we could be talking about really obscure references."

"Oh, right. So you mean they'd be really hard to remember?"

"Yes, that's exactly…" Moffatt turned to stare at Fliss and grinned before jumping off her chair and running out of the laboratory.

* * *

Fliss walked back into the laboratory to see Moffatt staring at a computer screen.

"Good news. I did as you asked and said exactly what you told me to say the next time the SGC dialled in. I said that we need substantial quantities of monamine oxidase A and catechol-O-methyl transferase because they are enzymes that break down adrenaline in the body and we don't have much of either on base, as well as deoxycholic acid and any other recommended immunostimulants to get the patient's own macrophage cells fighting off the infection, and that our stores of intravenous diazepam and midazolam are running dangerously low due to keeping the forty-three most severe cases sedated. I also repeated what you said about diazepam working well because it has anxiolytic properties that help to calm patients so that they have more information to work with."

She took a deep breath before continuing.

"_They_ said they're concerned about the long term use of heavy sedation and are giving thought to the possible psychological effects that will have to be dealt with should we survive this but recognise it's our best option at the moment. They also said they're looking into the possibility of acquiring a very experimental drug that was designed specifically to stimulate the activation of microglial cells in order to combat brain infections, but it will take at least another thirty-six hours to acquire the company's existing inventory and that there won't be much since only test quantities have ever been produced, and that going by our reports they don't think there will be anybody functional left in another twelve."

Moffatt looked up from her computer terminal.

"Wow. Spot on – I'm definitely impressed," she said.

"Well, it's not like I've got any excuse for not remembering," Fliss said, smiling and prompting a grin from Moffatt. "Right now they're rushing to get the delivery ready in time for the next dial-in, which from now on are going to be hourly in order to closely monitor our progress. I trust there are enough personnel functional enough to move the supplies through the Stargate and to the infirmary when the time comes?"

Jarvis limped into the laboratory and settled himself into the nearest chair.

"There will be. I've organised some of the lads who are still mostly with us to do all the fetching and carrying to free up the medical staff," he said.

"Uh… Sarge, Fliss? Do you want some good news?" Moffatt said uncertainly, as if not wishing to jinx her discovery.

"I should think we're overdue for some," Fliss replied.

"Too bloody right," Jarvis murmured.

"Okay. An hour ago I put several cultures in a freezer for a few minutes. I've been studying them since, even warmed a few of them back up in the incubator… nothing," she said happily.

"I'm not quite sure I understand what you're saying," Fliss said.

"No biological activity whatsoever. No movement, no replication, nothing. It's cold! Cold kills the microbe stone dead," Moffatt said excitedly.

"Well that's not exactly something we can do with the people, is it? Could we get them cold enough?" Fliss asked.

"Not a chance. I'm talking about temperatures that are significantly below zero, about minus twenty Celsius, whereas for humans severe hypothermia sets in when the core body temperature drops below about thirty degrees Celsius. I don't think this is a solution to curing everybody, but I've now tried it with multiple cultures under multiple conditions, and I think I've just proved that the microbe can't tolerate low temperatures. Every single one of these cultures is dead… if we can get the temperature down enough we might have a way of sterilising the base!" Moffatt replied happily.

"Won't that be dangerous?" Fliss asked.

"Does it matter?" Jarvis said.

"Sarge is right. At this point, I think we're going to have to go with dangerous. We're fast running out of time and functional personnel, so we can't afford to take safe, slow options. If we seal everybody in one place, kill the heating to everywhere else and open the surface doors…"

Fliss looked startled for a moment, then nodded in reluctant understanding.

"Which area do you want everybody sealed in?" Jarvis asked.

"Probably here, the infirmary – it's the closest we'll get to a truly self-contained facility within the Garrison. We've got lavatories, filtered air, beds, water and back-up power, and the whole facility was designed to be hermetically sealed in the event of a quarantine, though ironically we'll be locking ourselves in and away from the contaminated base," Moffatt said. "Might take a while though, we'll really need to bring as many supplies as possible with us."

"How long?" Fliss asked cautiously.

"Well we'll have to give enough time for the hazmat teams on the _Heracles_ to confirm the base is completely free of the microbe, and set up a decontamination and quarantine facility outside the infirmary once they're happy. Easily a few days, maybe a couple of weeks at the most," Moffatt replied casually.

"Really? You want to lock one hundred and sixty people and enough supplies for a few weeks in this infirmary?" Fliss said, appalled. Moffatt nodded and Fliss replied with a simple, "Oh".

"I'll get the lads organised, start moving supplies and stuff," Jarvis said, hobbling out of the laboratory.

"I'll let the SGC, IOA and MOD know about your idea. They may be able to help us plan this properly and minimise the risk to personnel and damage to the base."


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

The few medical personnel who remained functional enough to work and hadn't yet fully succumbed to the microbe picked their way through the dense crowd to distribute and administer medication and ensure the most severe cases were kept unconscious and as comfortable as possible. With one hundred and fifty-seven people occupying the infirmary and its annexes, comfort was relative. The men Jarvis had organised had moved catering packs, bottled water and field rations into the infirmary, as well as blankets, heaters, torches and camp beds from the base's humanitarian supplies and a few other crucial pieces of equipment.

"Okay… I think we're all set. All the supplies that came through the gate are in the infirmary and we've got every single person on base in one place. We've opened as many doors as possible within the base and secured whatever we can. The _Heracles_ has been apprised of our plan and should be here in a matter of hours… the sooner we start, the better. Here," Moffatt said, handing Fliss a radio, "take this and head to the control room."

Fliss stared at the radio uncertainly.

"No offence Corporal-"

"For god's sake, call me Kelly!"

"Sorry, Kelly… but why me? I'm not the most technical person here," Fliss protested.

"Because right now Sarge can barely walk and I need to keep an eye on everybody here. Besides, you're basically the most functional people left. Don't worry, it's not too difficult a process – I'll assist you by radio. We need every medically able member of staff here, and I'm guessing you can run pretty fast when you need to. Just head to the control room and let me know when you get there," Moffatt said.

"Right, okay," Fliss said, turning to leave. Moffatt turned back to the packed infirmary. The remains of the medical staff were issuing everybody still conscious with mild sedatives, broad spectrum antibiotics and immunostimulants while a number of support personnel handed out bottles of water, blankets and food. It was going to be a long and uncomfortable stay.

Arrayed around the main ward were portable heaters and lights. Emergency camp beds normally reserved as humanitarian supplies had been set up to ensure as many people as possible could sleep. Due to the small number of beds they could fit in the infirmary they would be taking a lesson from the Royal Navy and hot-bunking, with people sleeping in shifts.

Moffatt carefully picked her way through the huddled mass of people, checking sedative drips and heart monitors for the more advanced cases.

"I'm in the control room," the radio crackled.

"Okay, at this point it's pretty simple. What's the surface telemetry saying?"

"Um… oh! Temperature is thirty one below, wind speed is seventy-one miles per hour. That does not sound at all pleasant."

"No, it doesn't, but it's ideal for our purposes. Sergeant Gibson gave me a lot of information before she had that RPG attack flashback. Just do what I told you and everything will be fine – thanks to the SGC it's all programmed in, it just needs to be started. Once you're done, sprint back here because it's going to get very cold very quickly. Oh, and Fliss? Lose the heels."

"Right, probably a good idea. Okay, I'm setting the programme running now. It says 'adjusting environmental control settings'... the display suggests heaters seem to be turning off everywhere – it seems to be working. The programme is running. I'm heading back," Fliss said over the radio.

Moffatt turned and surveyed the infirmary. Something was wrong, something was missing. She turned to where the six foot four inch Jarvis was trying to hand a bottle of water to somebody sat on the floor without bending too far.

"Sarge, where's the Brigadier?"

Jarvis looked around, suddenly spotting the empty bed near the door.

"Damn it! I think he's gone walkabout, like the Major and Langer," he called, dropping the bottle into the afflicted soldier's grasping hands and limping as quickly as he could for the doorway.

"Sarge, you're in no state to go looking for him with your leg like that – Fliss just set the environmental program running so there's going to be an arctic storm _inside_ this base in a matter of minutes. I'll go," Moffatt said, pulling the nearest crash trolley open. In seconds she was holding a fresh syringe still in its sterile packing and a small bottle of midazolam. Holding these in one hand she snatched a blanket off the nearest heavily sedated patient and bolted quickly for the door so that Jarvis had no time to answer, protest or order her back.

* * *

There was an eerie quality to the base now that all but one of its tunnels and chambers had been emptied of inhabitants. The lights were on, doors were open but there was no activity and no sound beyond the various systems of the base, and with the new programme provided by the SGC shutting down anything putting out heat and attempting to lower the temperature as much as possible, there were few systems operational.

Moffatt jogged quickly through the dead passageways, noting that the base's temperature had already dropped just by cancelling the heating.

"Sir! Brigadier Webber!" she shouted, hoping that whatever episode her commanding officer was reliving would end soon and he would be lucid enough to return to the infirmary. She knew this was extremely unlikely – when Taylor and Langer had advanced to the stage where past and present merged and twisted into one they had both wandered off and shown no signs of snapping out of the episode. Both men had needed to be rendered unconscious, placed under heavy sedation and especially in Taylor's case restrained, and she suspected the exact same thing would have to be done for Webber. She checked her pocket again and felt the comforting shape and weight of the now loaded syringe and the plastic cap over the needle. She had no way of knowing what he was reliving, but she knew he had seen considerable combat and came from an elite unit and had quickly decided not to take any chances – at the very first sign of trouble she would simply stab the syringe into the Brigadier and inject the potent sedative.

"Brigadier? If you can hear me move towards my voice – you're not well and we need to get you back to the infirmary right now," she called.

She moved quickly, giving every room and every passageway a cursory check while desperately listening out for the sound of footsteps or one mumbled half of a conversation, anything that might indicate where Webber had wandered.

As she stuck her head into a store room a faint tremor rushed through the base accompanied by a distant rumble and the squeal of metal. That could mean only one thing, that the surface doors were opening, and her heart raced in response. She was running out of time and she still had no idea where the Brigadier had gone, or even if she was headed in the right direction. All she could do was run as fast as possible and check every passageway, hoping that the memory he was acting out didn't involve him running anywhere.

"BRIGADIER JAMES WEBBER!" she yelled at the top of her lungs, reasoning that even if Webber couldn't snap out of his memory overlap episode, his brain would at least integrate the real world event of her shouting his name into it and possibly lead him towards her. She knew from talking to Nelson that the same thing had happened when Langer had responded to Jarvis as if he were somebody else and Taylor had seen the marines trying to restrain him as enemy combatants of some description, and despite both men believing themselves to be somewhere else they had been able to effectively navigate the passages of the Garrison. She only hoped that whatever traumatic event from the past Webber was reliving didn't put her in the role of a hostile as had Taylor's episode with Jarvis.

It started as nothing more than a cool breeze. As the seconds passed, Moffatt noticed that loose papers on desks in the offices she passed had started to flap lazily and slowly. Wisps of her hair began to fly slowly around in front of her. Doors started to glide shut and the hairs on her arms began to stand on end.

"_WEBBER!_" she screamed as the air started to move more noticeably, knowing she wouldn't have long before her voice would be drowned out. The temperature had plunged several degrees in a short span of time, and her flesh had erupted into goose bumps. Hugging herself to keep warmer for longer she started to run faster. In the distance but rushing closer with every second she could hear the howling arctic wind from the surface.

"I am not losing anybody, not now. Not when we're so close…"

* * *

"_This," Brigadier-General Turnbull said, addressing the room, "is the Nevada Offworld Training Establishment. It is nominally owned and operated by the United States Air Force and attached to the Groom Lake R&D facility commonly known as Area 51, but also serves and has staff from the US Marine Corps, the US Army – and now you. You are here because the US Department of Defense and the UK Ministry of Defence have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to joint fund this facility in preparation for British offworld operations out of Stargate Command."_

"_Now, I know you've all been briefed on the Stargate and what many people have come to refer to as 'the new reality' – aliens are real and often hostile, we can go and have repeatedly gone faster than light, back in time and to alternative realities, and Earth operates a small fleet of home-grown starships, among many other things. It's a lot to take in, I know, but it may come as a surprise to some of you, and no surprise whatsoever to others of you, to learn that many of the unusual or prominent events in the last few years are in fact linked to the actions of the Stargate Program or the many threats that exist or have existed in this galaxy and others. Most of you probably already have a few suspicions," Turnbull said, "so let's go through a few of them. You each have files in front of you – you're authorised to open them now."_

_There was a short rustle as the twelve seated people facing Turnbull dutifully broke the seals on the files they had each been presented with and opened them to the first page. With a slight buzz of excitement and disbelief, Moffatt looked again at hers – as with all the others, the cover was marked 'Top Secret' and an extensive disclaimer about prosecution under the UK's Official Secrets Act and a slew of US laws on the tables in front of them. She turned to the first page and starting drinking in the details._

"_Here's a good example. Pretty much everybody remembers the day a few years back when communications and power systems went down across large parts of the world, and the US lost the Nimitz and her carrier group – publicly, this has been attributed to a freak meteor shower, but it was in fact the opening barrage in a battle for Earth's survival against a massed fleet of Goa'uld warships, and you would not believe how close we came to total annihilation. The fact that we survived is by itself incredible and a testament to the kind of people we have in the Stargate Program, but there are still people in the Pentagon and the White House who can't believe we actually managed to maintain our cover stories and keep it all more or less secret. They spent almost as much preparing to reveal the truth and deal with the consequences as they did on rebuilding and recovering from the attack."_

_Moffatt remembered the day, remembered the excitement and dread mixed into one that seemed to pervade the air – and that had been when everybody thought it was a natural disaster._

"_You may have heard on the news about five years back that for a while there were sightings of bizarre, ghostly animals in and around Colorado Springs. Not, as it happens, a chemical spill, but an Ancient device making things in other dimensions visible to us," Turnbull said._

"_A little over a decade ago there were wide reports of a fireball visible in the night sky over the continental US. That flash was a pair of Goa'uld Ha'taks being destroyed by SG-1," Turnbull said._

"_And more recently, the pandemic we called the St. Francis Virus or more commonly, Colorado Flu," Turnbull said matter-of-factly._

_The words that had just issued from Turnbull's mouth and echoed around the auditorium had hit her like a sledgehammer – Moffatt couldn't believe, couldn't _accept_ what she had just heard. In the pit of her stomach a tight, hot knot of tension had sprung into existence, and when she tried to swallow nervously, she found her mouth and throat had completely dried up. As her head began to swim she gripped the arm of her chair tightly and prayed nobody noticed. Her other hand flew to cover her mouth in case she couldn't resist the need to throw up._

"_While most people lump it in with other short-lived pandemics like Bird Flu and SARS, in actuality it was an engineered plague, a bioweapon sent against us by the Priors of the Ori that we were damned lucky to get a cure for, because otherwise it would have wiped out the human race on Earth. As it happens, the final death toll was around three thousand people worldwide, in only a matter of days. As far as the public is aware, the virus mutated so rapidly it burnt itself out. We know different."_

_Turnbull's voice droned on for another ten minutes, but to Moffatt it felt like hours. She barely took any of the information in, instead replaying his words, rolling them around her head in the vain hope she had completely misinterpreted his meaning. The Colorado Flu hadn't been an aggressive influenza strain. Why had nobody told her?_

_Her breathing quickened and she tried surreptitiously to take deep, calming breaths. She tried desperately to run through the possibilities, to work out how this could have happened. Had the vetting process and the numerous security checks and interviews somehow failed and missed it? Did they think it somehow wasn't important, or that it wasn't significant enough to be worth telling her about? Did they believe the two year gap and her instant acceptance of everything else meant it would be inconsequential to her? She felt betrayed, grief-ridden and angry._

_Why had nobody once explained to her, quietly and in confidence, that her father had in fact been killed by an alien biological weapon?_

_She hadn't been in the United Kingdom when it happened – she had been posted overseas to Iraq some months before, but even there she had seen the damage and the panic. Spreading with incredible speed, the virus had caused worldwide chaos – the United States had quarantined itself, other countries had sealed their borders and closed their ports, air travel was grounded, emergency services and military personnel put on alert. Like everybody else Moffatt and the rest of her unit had watched the news, horrified, as in a handful of days the number of infected climbed past eight thousand and the global death toll headed towards three thousand. They had had their hands full dealing with the fallout of the global crisis in Iraq, until miraculously the virus simply seemed to stop. Experts debated for months how it could have happened and where it came from, and how it could have stopped so suddenly, deciding that it had simply mutated itself into an unsustainable form._

_The swiftness and virulence of the contagion and the chaos it engendered meant there had been no option for Moffatt to immediately return home – the crisis had severe knock-on effects everywhere, everything from plummeting stock markets to destabilised governments, alongside widespread panic and civil unrest. By the time Moffatt was able to return home on compassionate leave her father, the sixth person in the UK to be infected, was dead._

* * *

Cursing angrily to herself, Moffatt shook her head in a futile attempt to clear it as the flashback receded from her conscious mind and her sense of the present reasserted itself. She realised with a sinking feeling that she had no way of knowing how much time the flashback had consumed, but it was painfully clear that the temperature had dropped sharply. Moffatt guessed it must be at least ten degrees below zero and falling further with every second, watching as her breath turned to mist very visibly in front of her and her lungs caught on the increasingly cold air. She realised belatedly that she was shivering violently and quickly threw the blanket she was carrying around her head and shoulders and wrapped her arms tighter around her torso to preserve as much of her core body temperature as possible.

The tunnels were filled with a high pitched howl as the freezing wind tore at everything, surging through the tunnels and passages of the Garrison and depositing snow carried all the way from the outside onto door frames and desks. Where the frigid, high speed air and the ice crystals it carried blasted her exposed skin it left an aching, stinging numbness behind, and the effects on her face meant she could barely see, her eyes streaming profusely and blurring her vision.

"W-w-webber!" she cried, the words failing to make any impact and struggling even to get out of her mouth just as she struggled to catch her breath. Shouting was now futile, but somehow she had to find Webber or he didn't stand a chance. If he wasn't in his right mind there was no telling where he might have gone, how he might be reacting to the arctic storm coursing through the Garrison's corridors – it was very likely he would already be in the early stages of hypothermia at least, not least because Moffatt knew she was and she had the advantage of being aware of her surroundings.

She forced her way forwards, knowing that running through the tunnels was no longer an option as she battled against the rising wind. As a particularly brutal gust threatened to topple her she put a hand out to steady herself in the onslaught and gasped at how cold the rock wall had already become.

Staggering forward and trying to wipe the fluid streaming out of her eyes with a completely numb hand, it took her thirty seconds to reach the end of the present corridor. She turned to look both ways, and despite her badly blurred vision, thought she saw a dark indistinct blob ahead of her. She had expected to find the recall-addled Brigadier stumbling blindly through the storm towards some remembered goal known only to him, his mind completely oblivious to the arctic storm raging through the subterranean base while his body passed through the increasingly worse stages of hypothermia.

Instead he had collapsed to the floor.

"B-b-b-b-b-brig-g-g-gad-d-d-d-ier," she stuttered, pushing herself towards him through the screaming winds with painful slowness. Dreading the thought of putting herself in contact with the ice cold concrete, she nevertheless knelt next to the fallen figure and moved her face close enough to be able to squint through the snow, wind and blurriness to see the figure's face. It was definitely him. Knowing she couldn't feel for his pulse with her fingers as numb as they were, she wrapped her arms around his inert form and tried to heave him upright, praying he wasn't dead or even unconscious, merely weakened. With some difficulty she managed to wrap the blanket around the pair of them.

She didn't know if she was assisted by the wind or found a reserve of strength she didn't know she had, but somehow she managed to haul him to his feet and after several attempts managed to drag his arm over her shoulder to give her leverage and a handhold, but without sensation or strength in her hands she couldn't do much to hold it there. He leaned, weighing heavily on her, and Moffatt felt like her legs were going to collapse as she struggled to guide him back the way she had come. Webber was barely functional or even conscious, almost completely reliant on Moffatt to guide and carry them both.

Moffatt grunted in pain and frustration. She could barely see, she didn't know how much time had passed, and she wasn't even sure she was moving in the right direction. All she knew was that she had to keep moving or they would both die. Webber was moving more sluggishly now, and she had to take most of his weight.

Whatever strength she'd had was almost sapped by the cold, and screaming with exertion and frustration at being defeated after so much effort, Moffatt started to sink towards the frozen floor, her consciousness receding as the cold seeped into her mind. As her eyes closed and she surrendered to the elements, she felt Webber slip from her grasp and her legs give way. The floor was like ice and she could feel her body heat draining away and with it, her strength and consciousness. Darkness was setting in, her brain shutting down and her muscles useless.

At least she had tried.

* * *

"She'll be getting a commendation of course," Fliss supplied helpfully, hoping it would improve the officer's dark mood. The IOA representative looked rather the worse for wear with her hair in disarray, her once pristine suit now crumpled and smudged and a blanket wrapped around her. The bags under her eyes indicated the inadequate sleeping arrangements, but she didn't seem at all fazed by her appearance.

"Great," Taylor replied, fuming as he lay in bed. He felt weak from spending so much time in bed and his head throbbed as his system readjusted after days of having numerous powerful drugs injected into it, but this only partly explained his foul mood. With nearly one hundred and sixty people crowded into the infirmary for almost a week, with all of them suffering from flashbacks and recall episodes to some degree, the atmosphere wasn't pleasant and the Garrison personnel were on edge and itching to get away from each other. Relying purely on the bottled water and ration packs they had stored in the infirmary before it was sealed for sustenances and having to pick their way carefully around each other due to the overcrowding hadn't helped. The doors were still heavily sealed by the medical isolation systems and as a contingency the quarantine was enforced by armed members of the dozens of personnel beamed down from the _Heracles_ who had spent days walking around the rest of the Garrison in Level A hazmat suits taking cultures from every conceivable surface and testing for the presence of the microbe.

"Oh, I forgot to mention!" Fliss continued, briefly smiling at her inadvertent choice of words and their implication. "This morning Colonel Bachman radioed down to say that his teams have tested everywhere and that the rest of the base has been officially declared decontaminated, so you'll be happy to know that Corporal Moffatt's plan to kill the microbe with cold worked, though the crew of the _Heracles_ have nevertheless been disinfecting the entire base and spraying liquid nitrogen in key areas to make sure."

"Did having an arctic hurricane in the base cause much damage?" Taylor asked, almost uninterested in the answer.

"Remarkably no, it didn't. I think he said that some computers and a few items of sensitive equipment will need to be replaced, and of course the winds created a tremendous mess, things like that, but serious damage is minimal. Oh, I should mention that all perishables have already been destroyed as a precaution, so we'll need to be fully restocked, but its nothing a few million pounds won't fix," Fliss replied.

"The good news is that the microbe is being beaten in everybody infected – tests indicate the treatment plan worked well enough to at least buy time for our own immune systems to make a dent in the microbe population and start reversing the condition," Nelson said, looking as haggard and pained as Taylor as he sat hunched over on a chair near Taylor's bed with a blanket wrapped around his shoulders and a bottle of water in his hands. "And it's been beaten back enough that it seems that nobody is contagious any more – plus we have an idea how to recognise the symptoms as well as treat it now, just in case we get a reoccurrence."

"Oh, Colonel Bachman also said that's unlikely – he despatched a team to Site 02 to test there and it appears that the low temperatures during the storm have eradicated any of the microbe that may have survived in the wild, so we don't have to worry about being reinfected the moment we walk outside again," Fliss added.

"Nelson, usually when people say 'the good news' there's bad to follow," Taylor replied, massaging his head to try and get rid of the headache.

"There is," Nelson said. "The bad news is that it looks like it will take time for the effects to disappear fully, but the worst seems to be over. No more wandering the corridors reliving past battles, though we may have to put up with flashbacks for a little while longer until whatever structures or proteins or whatever the microbes left behind are broken down fully. There is worse news though."

"Damn it. You mean decontamination, don't you?" Taylor replied angrily.

"I do, yes. Lyngvi might be sterilised and we may not be contagious any more, but this room is, and as long as we're in here we run the risk of reinfection. Colonel Bachman's teams have set up a full decontamination facility outside, but it won't be pleasant. They're not taking any chances of this reoccurring – we'll each need to strip, shower thoroughly and then move to a clean quarantine zone. Every article of clothing will likely be destroyed," Nelson said. At his last statement, an expression of sadness and regret passed over Fliss's face for a fleeting moment.

"I managed to talk them down from giving each of us a spinal tap to ensure the microbe is no longer present, so instead we have to spend twenty-four hours under observation."

"Great."

They were all quiet for several seconds, until Nelson started talking again, his tone different.

"She did a good thing you know. You shouldn't be angry at her," he said softly.

"I know she did, I just… damn it, Moffatt, why'd you have to go and do that? It was stupid. Selfless, brave and utterly stupid," Taylor said, trying to laugh but coming across as bitter. "Every time they're involved in a major crisis one or more members of my team end up in the infirmary, then she goes and does this. After Fido nearly killed her I specifically told her this needed to stop."

Nelson looked down at the floor while Fliss coughed politely to express her discomfort, trying to quietly excuse and distance herself from the conversation.

"I know you did sir, and I already apologised," came the groggy voice of the next bed's occupant.

"You were damned lucky Moffatt. Fliss and Jarvis won't be there to drag you inside next time," Taylor admonished.

"If I am, I hope I'll be wearing something warmer. It was jolly cold out there," Fliss said quietly. Nelson smiled.

"Yes sir. Noted, sir. I'll try to keep the base-saving heroics to a minimum during the next crisis," she mumbled.

"I should bloody hope so," Taylor muttered. "Not least because you're making the rest of us look bad by comparison."

"Well, I'd better check on the Brigadier again. He won't admit it, but I think he's enjoyed not having to do paperwork since he woke up," Nelson said, standing up from his chair.

"Still, severe hypothermia is a bit of an excessive way of getting out of it, and it'll all still be there when we're properly operational again, if it hasn't reproduced and multiplied enough to fill the base in the mean time," Halverson's slightly muffled voice croaked from the bed on Taylor's other side, remaining curled up and motionless under the blanket.

"I thought you were trying to get to sleep?" Taylor asked, risking nausea to turn and look at her and seeing only her back.

"Trying is the operative word," Halverson replied, reluctantly rolling over to face the other way. "Turns out it's a bit difficult when there's an extended conversation going on around the next bed."

"Oh. Sorry."

"Don't worry about it, I'm starting to think I've slept more than enough anyway. While we're all awake, I will tell you one thing you might find interesting that I remembered courtesy of our favourite microbe. It's to do with Norse mythology, just for a change. Odin had two ravens named Huginn and Muninn and they brought him news from around the nine worlds of Yggdrasil. Funny thing is, their names translate as Thought and Memory. Just thought that might be a good name for the microbe – Muninn," Halverson said.

Taylor was quiet for a moment, contemplative.

"Of course," Moffatt mumbled from Taylor's left, pulling the covers up tighter, "if there's a direct link between them that suggests there's another microbe out there called Huginn that enhances intelligence."

Taylor's eyes widened as he considered the possibilities, good and bad.

"I have new orders for you Moffatt. Go to sleep, corporal."

"Yes sir. With great pleasure, sir."

_A/N: That's it for Stargate Ragnarok Episode 6. Hope you enjoyed it. Please leave a review if you did, and even if you didn't._


End file.
